Acolyte (40 page)

It was the blood that stood out the most, though – vivid against the mainly white flooring and walls. Jonah tensed, expecting the
flashlights to pick out corpses at any moment, but none were visible.

Kendrick and Sly started to move further into the room, keeping their voices low. Sly aimed her flashlight beam at something among the pile of furniture and Jonah realized it was an overturned pool table. Then she pointed the beam up to the ceiling. Blood spatter was easy to make out, lines showing sweeps of arterial spray.
Many
lines.

‘When, do you reckon?' she said.

‘Has to be at least twelve hours,' said Kendrick. ‘But I'd guess longer. They would probably have taken people from their rooms early yesterday morning, when they were asleep and at their most vulnerable.' His flashlight beam lingered on another line of blood spray, more vividly red than the rest. ‘Although that looks very recent.'

They were speaking with a level of detachment born of experience; Jonah also found himself clinically assessing what he was looking at, as if it was a crime scene. The detachment was a mercy.

The blood on the floor was substantial, and in places the white surface was completely covered. Sly's flashlight picked out what had to be drag patterning in the blood, leading out of the recreation area.

‘Where are they?' asked Jonah, stunned by what he was seeing. In a few short minutes his sense of the facility had been turned on its head. When he'd arrived, the assumption had been that it was a working research base, the inhabitants oblivious as Andreas carried out his clandestine plans in a separate part of the facility. ‘There were over two hundred people here, half of them revivers. Where are the
bodies
?'

Kendrick walked towards the opposite wall, taking care not to slide where the blood was still wet. He turned, his light pointing at something on the floor. It was a mound surrounded by the same oddly gelatinous substance they'd seen with Rico's remains, this time recognizable as the lower half of a ribcage. It was coated in a
thick near-translucent layer that had once been flesh, deep in a clotted black pool. ‘He's been a hungry boy,' said Kendrick.

‘Over here,' said Sly, moving to where the tables were piled, the beam of her flashlight picking out something under a table at the edge of the heap.

A man, maybe late twenties. The left half of his face was gone, as was the front left of his chest, and nothing remained below the waist. All the wounds bore the cauterized hallmarks of Mary Connart's injuries.

‘My God,' said Sly, crouching, peering at the look of horror fixed into what remained of the man's face. ‘What happened here? What was this? Some kind of sacrifice? Is that why Andreas went to all the trouble of starting a new Baseline? A ready supply of victims?'

‘Maybe,' said Kendrick, sounding weary.

‘I recognize that tone,' said Sly. ‘Out with it, boss. What's on your mind?'

Kendrick shook his head. ‘Two decades back a handful of kidnappers took the CEO of a small oil operation hostage. We were standing by, ready to take them out, but over the next ten hours the negotiations went well. Money changed hands, the CEO was released, the kidnappers fled. When we went in afterwards, we found fifteen staff slaughtered in a basement. Nobody had even realized that they were there. We finally tracked the ringleader down, and he told us that ten hours was a long time. He said he was just letting his guys have a little fun.'

‘What are you saying?' said Jonah. He looked around the room, unable to stop picturing what must have gone on here.

‘Andreas had no need for these people any more,' said Kendrick, his eyes fixed on the dead man's contorted face. ‘Maybe he and his acolytes just wanted to let off some steam. Have a little fun.' He looked up at Sly and Jonah. ‘A little fun in the recreation room.'

They crossed to the far double doors, the ones that led to the canteen. The drag patterning led that way, too. Through the doors was a short corridor, another double door at the end; the lighting hadn't been damaged along here, but it was dim, pulsing more rapidly than it had been before.

The canteen was curiously untouched, save for the wide red trail that passed through it. They moved steadily, Kendrick and Sly keeping flashlight and gun held up ahead, not pausing until they reached the other canteen exit. Kendrick went through it with purpose, expectant; Sly motioned for Jonah to get a move on.

They were now in a large area filled with comfortable seating. There was a bar on one side, and Jonah had a real yearning for a drink of something strong.

‘Nice set-up they had here,' said Sly; ahead, Kendrick was following the blood trail on the carpet, his pace steady. The next doors were signed for the gym. They went straight through, ignoring the doors to changing rooms either side. The blood on the tiled floor led to the doors at the end.

‘Swimming pool,' said Jonah. He could smell the chlorine. It wasn't all he could smell.

The dark phase of the pulsing light deepened; even at peak, the fluorescent tubes barely had time to kick on before failing again, punctuating the black with disconcerting flashes that hurt Jonah's head.

Kendrick opened up the doors. They stood, staring. The trail of blood ended here.

They'd found the bodies.

At first it seemed to Jonah that the water had simply been drained and the pool filled with the dead, many half consumed, the way the young man in the rec room had been, others with their throats torn out, limbs wrenched off, blood and bone and brain on show. Closest to them were the uniformed bodies of a dozen dead security guards.

‘The Baseline security team,' said Sly. ‘Probably the first to be killed.'

More corpses lay in heaps around the edge of the far wall. For a moment, Jonah thought one of those bodies was dressed in the black uniform of Andreas's inner circle, one of his acolytes; he wondered if the victims had managed to claim one of their attacker's lives, at least. A small victory, he thought, but impressive, given what they'd been up against. Then the lighting grew enough for them to see by, briefly, and he realized he'd been wrong. Even that small victory had been an illusion.

They walked in. Kendrick knelt by the side of the pool. He reached out and tugged at the arm of the nearest body, then used his foot to carefully push it away. Underneath, the swirling bloody water was black in the torchlight.

‘How many?' said Sly, casting her light over the surface, the bodies bobbing gently now that Kendrick had disturbed them.

Kendrick stayed silent, walking over to the far side of the pool.

‘There,' said Jonah, pointing at one of the floating bodies, feeling his legs weaken. He'd seen her in the brief flashes from the pulsing lights and, for a moment, wasn't sure, but Sly aimed her flashlight and he knew. ‘Stephanie Graves,' he said. Her face was bloody and blank. He felt tears pricking. ‘She was a friend,' he said.

‘The head of research,' said Sly, and Jonah nodded.

Kendrick came over. ‘I'd guess we're looking at a hundred corpses,' he said, thoughtful. ‘Jonah, do you recognize any revivers?'

Jonah felt cold. ‘Why?'

Kendrick indicated the bodies. ‘Half the people are still missing, that's all. So tell me if you recognize any revivers.'

Jonah held his hand out to Sly and she gave him her flashlight. He steeled himself and started to look at the faces, but no others were familiar. ‘They wouldn't be … they wouldn't be
part
of this.'

‘I'd known Rico for fifteen years,' said Kendrick. ‘I trusted him
with my life. I wouldn't be surprised
what
Andreas could convince people of. They killed off everyone they didn't need. If that didn't include the revivers, then we can be sure they're helping him.'

Jonah said nothing.

‘We need to keep going,' said Sly. She and Kendrick started walking along the side of the pool, heading for the plant room.

Jonah managed to follow, but only slowly; unease was swamping him, and he was unable to hold back from shining the flashlight on each face, looking for people he knew, looking for Stacy Oakdale and for Jason Shepperton, looking for faces he'd recognize from national and international conferences. Feeling more and more apprehensive, he wondered if what Kendrick had said might be true.

The pulse and flicker of the weak lighting in the darkness was oppressive now; alongside it was the continuing sensation that had first struck him just before they entered the rec room. Then, he had thought it felt like a revival just before the surge; now, it felt more like a doorway opening up, and a massing of power of some kind, beginning to slip out of the gap. He was sensing the process Andreas had started, he thought – the rise, Andreas reclaiming his lost strength.

But the unease he felt was more than this, more than
all
of this, and he suddenly recognized that what loomed most of all in his mind was the sense of—

He stopped.

The sense of something there, with them. The sense of being
watched.

‘Kendrick …' he whispered, trying to move towards them but finding himself frozen. His whisper was too quiet, his throat tight as he realized just how strong the sense of
presence
was.

‘Kendrick
,
'
he said again, louder, more urgently.
‘Sly
.
'

They stopped walking and turned, Kendrick's flashlight beam dazzling him. ‘What?' said Kendrick.

‘Something's in here.'

‘What do you—?' Kendrick began, but then his expression changed, and his eye line shifted higher. Looking right above Jonah's head.

Jonah turned his head slowly. He saw it – just a few feet behind, towering above him, the darkness glistening in the torchlight. As he looked, the regular pulsing of the power supply peaked again, fluorescent flashes marking the creature's silhouette and revealing its size: larger even than those that had come for Tess.

Shots came and Jonah could see the bullets pass through: ineffective, but enough to take the creature's attention away from him. He dived to the side and, as he did, he saw Sly charging towards it, her run stalling as she saw that her gun was useless.

The shadow strode ahead and reached for her. More gunfire ripped through its flesh, from Kendrick this time; little more than a mosquito bite to it, but the creature turned to him now, hurling Sly hard into the wall beside Jonah. She fell to the floor, out cold.

The shadow took purposeful steps in Kendrick's direction. Jonah could see that it was enjoying its game.
It wants you to run, Kendrick
, thought Jonah.
It wants to take its time.

Kendrick was backing away, still holding his flashlight, pointing it at the creature that was coming for him, gun raised but holding fire. A gun could get the creature's attention, but nothing more. With the sunlight they'd created in the safe house they'd stood a chance, delaying the creatures, causing them pain, and perhaps – if the sight of the creature that had taken Tess was anything to go by – perhaps, given enough time, they could kill them.

But not here, in the dark.

Kendrick turned to run and the creature lunged; its dark claw wrapped around his neck, and it lifted him until they were face to face. It let out a hiss and threw him across the floor, back towards the pool entrance.

Jonah thought of the explosive charges he carried, the simple priming action, the easy remote trigger. Given the effect of the inferno Kendrick had engineered before, it was possible that the explosion could hurt this creature, but it would be sure to kill Kendrick. These creatures might be vulnerable to
sunshine
, but everything Jonah had was more likely to hurt the living.

The living.

As the thought came, the lighting flashed and he saw, at the far end of the pool, a man in dark clothes crouching almost out of sight behind stacked plastic chairs, watching the creature as it closed in on Kendrick again; his face was gleeful and blood-soaked, and Jonah instantly thought of the corpse in black he thought he'd seen lying among the bodies. The one that had gone by the time the lights flashed again.

Not a corpse.

Anger filled Jonah's veins. As darkness enfolded him again he started to run, leaving the flashlight on the floor. He only had a few seconds of cover before the lighting would pulse again and betray him, but he knew what he had to do.

He couldn't hurt the creature, but by God he could hurt its host.

He ran along the side of the pool in almost total darkness but he didn't have the luxury of caution. His hand went to the gun Kendrick had given him. He released the safety and started to raise it as the power surged again. The lighting flickered and his eyes sought his target, but there was nobody there; the man had moved, and that meant he'd seen Jonah coming. Unless something
else
had seen him …

Jonah stopped and turned his head to see the huge silhouette at the far side of the pool turn to look at him. He sensed movement
nearby and spun as the man came at him from the corner of the room, too fast, too close, bearing down with a look of
rage
on his face, and a look of
entitlement
, of sheer outrage at the gall of someone trying to put an end to his entertainment. The shock almost made Jonah drop the gun even as he brought it up and pulled the trigger and saw the man's forehead blossom red. All in an instant, yet still enough time for Jonah to grasp how necessary and simple the action was, one that would surely haunt him always: killing someone, face to face.

And enough time to realize how much momentum the man was bringing with him.

He collided with Jonah and clung to him as he fell, on the point of death. Jonah fell back with the weight of the dying man on him, and he knew what he was falling into.

The pool.

He landed on a lifeless wet body, the lights fading again. For an instant Jonah didn't move, overwhelmed by the proximity of the man he'd just shot, the man still clinging to him, warm blood gushing from his forehead onto Jonah's chest.