Tandem of Terror (32 page)

After all they'd been through. After all the
good times and bad. Lucky was the most honest, caring, loyal friend
he ever had. No one could compare, no one could match his
companionship. He had never let him down and never would. He was
not losing his canine mind something was out there!
Damn you
listen to me!

The house was drowned in silence now, it had
been hours since the master went to bed and the den went
dormant.

Lucky would not rest however. He
couldn't.

He could find no peace, instead he listened
to every creak, every cricket, every sigh of the wind and waited,
vigilant, undaunted, tenacious. He knew it would return, he just
knew....

The rasping came again.

The breathing was closer than before, almost
sounding as if it was in the house.

Lucky jumped to his feet and dashed down the
hall, the clinking of his license announcing his arrival into the
living room. He drew himself to the window without hesitation.

It was not across the street under the maple
tree this time.

Now it stood in the front yard, its face
nothing more than a patch of black underneath its hood. How brazen
it was infiltrating the yard as if it could not be seen, as if it
would not be noticed trying to invade someone's home.
My
home.

Lucky's entire body burned as if with fever,
his snout crinkled into a snarl.

Its void of a face glared right at Lucky who
in return fixed his big brown eyes right back at it. The utter
density of that black patch threatened to drive him mad. He could
feel the coldness in it, the hunger, and the soulless
existence.

Lucky could taste blood in his mouth, it
wanted to savor his master's blood, ravage his flesh and, suckle
the marrow of his bones.

Never! It would never happen, not as long as
he could draw breath.

He tore at the window with a fury, clawing at
the glass and exploding in barks and yelps that could wake the
dead.

"
Goddamit," He heard his
friend groan and stir. "Lucky!" The anger in his voice was evident
now. "No!"

He ran back into the bedroom, heeding his
calls. He went to the bed in hopes of getting him out of it but was
simply scolded and given the cold shoulder. "No, go to sleep!" He
bellowed, pulling the covers up tight.

Lucky paused momentarily a single cry
escaping him then listened intensely.

The breathing...the breathing, it was as loud
as it could possibly be. It was deafening, pounding in Lucky's ears
like a sledgehammer. Was it in the house?

The dog launched himself out of the room
again and back to the window. There was nothing there. It had
moved, it was closer, was it actually in the house now?

Lucky ran to the kitchen and glared out the
sliding doors, hair rising down his spine.

No, nothing there.

Back down the hall he scampered in frenzy,
entering the spare room and peering out its window.

Again nothing.

The breathing filled the hall; it WAS in the
house. It had finally gotten in. Lucky turned from the spare room,
growing frantic when he saw it standing in front of his best
friend's doorway.

It stood poised to strike, no feet visible
beneath the sickening raincoat it wore. It just hovered
effortlessly in the air. It lifted its clawed arms, reaching into
the room, preparing to enter and devour the light of Lucky's
life.

His eyes flared as a low growl rose in his
chest. His body ignited with rage, all of his teeth sprouted from
under his lips and he shot through the air like a bullet.

Before it was able to move even an inch,
Lucky hit it with all of his force and the two went crashing into
the office, shattering across the computer desk; howls and squeals
screeching through the house.

They thudded across the floor, the dog
climbing on top of the twisted, hidden form that writhed within the
raincoat, clawed hands flailing to get free of the berserk animal
that was defending its home, its master, its entire world.

A hideous, high-pitched scream filled the
house, the sound almost shattering all the windows in the
house.

The man of the house bolted from his bedroom,
unable to comprehend what in the world was going on. He heard the
ruckus in the room next door, Lucky was in the height of his rage
and conflict and finally able to get his attention. Finally he
proved something was indeed wrong.

A pale mist hung in the air as Lucky got to
his feet and stared at it, noticing that

His master caught a glimpse of it before it
evaporated as if never there.

"
Lucky," he wore a puzzled
look on his face, eyes widening with awe, as he stared down at his
beloved pet.

Clamped tightly in Lucky's teeth and between
his paws was a filthy and tattered raincoat. He allowed his pal to
pull the damp and reeking coat from his grip. Again he smelled
sulfur and burnt rubber, dwindling this time.

"
What is it boy, what is
this?" He murmured, obviously unable to fathom what he was holding
in his hands. "What happened?"

Lucky simply stared up at his master with
loving, pride filled eyes.

He wagged his tail and awaited his praise and
surely...a giant sized treat.

Outbreak on
Beta-Gamma-Twelve

Eric S. Brown

It crawled across the ceiling, a mass of
angry muscle and fur, as fast as if it were sprinting, full out,
towards Cos. Cos stood there too stunned to react, watching blood
and saliva being flung from its open jaws by the speed of the
thing's movement, as it drew closer. Moving so fast his form was
almost a blur, Keith stepped between the beast and its prey. He
jerked up his machine pistol, with the thing so close its muzzle
was nearly touching the weapon's barrel, and pulled the trigger.
The thunder of gunfire and the wet sounds of brain matter
splattering the walls of the corridor snapped Cos out of his
shock.

"
Holy..." he started to scream
but didn't have time. Two more of the creatures came charging down
the corridor to the left. Cos spun holding down the firing
mechanism of his tri-barrel assault rifle. The three barrels spun
spewing death, tearing the creatures to shreds with a stream of
high velocity rounds.

Weaver was shouting "Fall back!" as the
remaining members of the squad raced through the closing blast
doors at the end of the passage way. The five feet thick steel
doors closed behind them with a loud clang. Barely a second later,
pounding on the other side of the doors began as more of the things
reached it. Weaver ignored it. "Everybody still alive?"

Bates shook his head. "We lost Greg, Mark,
Jason, and Jones. Rigel is pretty messed up too." Bates was holding
Rigel, trying to support the wounded man's weight. Rigel was barely
conscious and an open gash stretched along his midsection pouring
blood.

"
Cos? You okay?" Weaver
asked.

"
Barely, Keith here just
saved my arse or I wouldn't be."

Weaver glanced at Keith. Keith's uniform was
torn in several places and he leaked an orange fluid from the
scrapes and claw marks which riddled his body. Keith noticed
Weaver's look and nodded. "I am still functioning at seventy
percent capacity. My PSI-ware appears to be operational."

Weaver gave the group his trademark grin.
"Well this could be going a bit better."

"
Really?" Bates chided.
"Could somebody give me a hand with Rigel already? The bastard is
bleedin' all over me."

Keith holstered his weapon and moved to share
Rigel's weight with Bates as the pounding on the blast doors grew
louder then went silent.

"
Anyone got a plan?" Cos
asked wedging a fresh magazine into the side of his
tri-barrel.

"
How many have we taken down
so far?" Weaver fished a cigarette from his pocket and tried to
light up but it was wet with blood, not his own, that had soaked
through the pocket of his uniform. He cursed and flipped the smoke
aside.

"
Not enough," Bates injected
before Keith could answer, "This whole fracking planet has gone
wolf."

"
We must get back to the
shuttle. Inform Earth Gov. of what has transpired here," Keith
informed them all in a calm voice.

"
Glad to," Weaver laughed,
"If you can tell me how we're supposed to reach the
shuttle."

"
Sir, we need to get
moving," Cos said taking point, "We can't stay here. The wolves are
intelligent. They're likely learning how to use those doors' manual
override right now."

"
Agreed," Keith tilted his
head to the side as he reached out with his mind and scanned the
area around them. "There are presently two packs attempting to
flank our current position. Both are approaching from passages to
west."

"
Let's go. We'll try to
double back around them, down the opposite side of the facility and
get to the docking port. If I remember correctly, this outer
corridor system goes all the way around the base." The squad moved
out at Weaver's command with Bates and Keith dragging Rigel between
them.

"
They don't pay us enough
for this crap," Bates whined, "The F-ers said it was a containable
outbreak. F-them!"

"
Never trust the INTEL,"
Weaver warned, "Not on a job like this."

"
Are those things really
Lycans?" Cos asked over his shoulder from the lead position without
taking his eyes of the pathways in front of him.

"
Yes and no," Keith
responded. "They are the product of Lycan DNA but they are not true
Lycans in the mythical sense. It does not take silver to kill them,
as you have witnessed, but they do share the Lycan species' lust
for violence. More than share it, it is intensified in them as this
project was designing a new type of shock-troop to replace Synth
units like myself. Earth Gov. wanted fully organic soldiers with
the reaction time and strength of a synthetic like myself without
our drawback of being costly to create and repair. They also
believed that the Lycans' enhanced senses would compensate for the
PSI-ware implanted in Synths."

"
So what the frag happened
here? How did things get so out of control?" Cos asked.

"
It is my belief that the
manipulating of the Lycan genetic material somehow mutated the
Lycan virus in the test subjects. Infection occurred in one or more
members of the science team and spread through the colony too
quickly to be contained."

"
Well, D'uh," Bates grunted
at Keith. "So now we're surrounded by a colony full of people who
aren't people anymore at all but still want to have us over for
dinner in a bad way."

Cos rounded the corner of the corridor
system's latest turn and stepped into the docking port. "F-me. We
made it," he smiled. The squad picked up the pace with Keith taking
Rigel completely from Bates and hoisting the man onto his back as
they ran for the shuttle. All of them relaxed as they climbed
inside and Weaver slid into the pilot seat raising the shuttle's
shields. "We're going home, gentlemen," Weaver said firing up the
shuttle's engine.

Cos took a seat and turned to Keith. "But
how... How did it spread so quickly?"

"
I am sorry. The virus is
airborne."

Bates' head shot up as he started to yell
"What the Frack?" but a bullet from Keith's weapon took off the top
of his skull. Keith flicked his handgun to full auto and spun in a
semicircle around the interior of the shuttle, dispatching the
squad, with a single, continuous burst. Weaver was knocked forward
into the shuttle's controls as eight rounds ripped their way into
his back. Cos took three rounds to the throat and toppled spitting
up blood. Rigel's body convulsed where it lay on the metal floor as
Keith emptied the last of his clip into it.

The Synth unit walked through his companion's
blood to the control area and shoved Weaver's corpse from the pilot
seat. He opened a channel to the main ship in orbit. "Airborne
outbreak confirmed. Research station Beta-Gamma-Twelve is lost.
Initiate procedure D." He slumped into the chair and stared down at
Weaver's body. It was unfortunate that it had required live marines
to confirm that the virus had made the leap to being airborne but
Earth Gov. needed to be sure. Keith felt no fear as he waited for
the wave of nuclear fire to wash of the planets surface and destroy
the colony and him as well. He felt only a vague sense of loss that
no one was left to share this victory with him.

A Rage of
Angels

John Grover

The white house in the distance beckoned to
me as I stood in this vast wheat field. There was something strange
about it, something different in the air that surrounded it. I
watched the windmill beside it spin sluggishly in the warm summer
breeze as the sun poured its splendor down on me.

What was I doing here? How did I come to be
in this field?

The white house called and I obeyed. I
started through the waves of wheat, slowly drawing myself closer,
my body brushing along the grains

I saw a flock of black birds circling the
house. They looked like crows, but I couldn't tell. They made no
sound as they continued in repetition, watching as if waiting for
something to die.

Something wet laced against me. I looked down
at the wheat and saw them speckled with red, glistening in the hot
sunlight. Blood, I immediately thought, but who's and how? Would
the house hold answers?