The Containment Team (21 page)

I LIFTED MY shotgun, but a particularly loud thump on the door made me pause. The monsters on the other side had been joined by a few more.

Cursing, I twisted around and grabbed the push bars of the doors the best that I could. It was difficult to get a grip on them with my sweaty palms. All it would take was for one of the monsters on the other side to figure out how to use a door handle and we’d be swarmed. It was a small mercy the monsters were incapable of functional thought at this stage.

How far along were they in the process? If they were all like the half-breed monster we’d blown apart out in the hallway, perhaps they were at the very beginning, having just been put together by Pratt. 

“Got any ideas on how we’re going to get out of this one?” Madelyn asked, grabbing hold of the other door. The fear on her face had been replaced by a determination. It made me yearn for this to be over, all the more.

“We won’t stop till we’re out,” I said, “or he merges us with dogs.”

Madelyn lifted an eyebrow. “You won’t be so lucky. I saw a dead pig in the corner.”

From the corner of my eye, I saw Pete whip up his shotgun and fire. Looking over my shoulder, I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of pride as Pete’s slug ripped a hole the size of a soccer ball through the blutom that had wrapped itself around Pratt’s lower torso. When we’d first met four years ago, the thought of him picking up a gun, let alone firing one, had been unthinkable for the man.

Here he was, using his weapon as the last line of defense.

Pete’s propane tanks were tossed to either side. He would have done more damage if he would have tried to use one of those. We’d been lucky none of the shrapnel had come back on us the first time. We needed to be extra careful the next time we blew one of them up. 

After the slug went through I was able to see through to the other side, then the goo collapsed around it as if nothing had happened. Pete’s next shot took off Pratt’s head. I had to give Pete credit, even though it was a stationary target. When we’d gone skeet shooting he’d never been very good at hitting the clay pigeons and when we’d switched over to shooting targets for accuracy he hadn’t been much better. Maybe all those times had done him a little good.

Or it might have also just been he was firing a slug from less than twenty feet away. It was probably that. 

Pratt gestured with his hand as an eruption of blutom came from his neck and formed a new blutom covered head. At the seconds passed, it molded itself into the same shape of Pratt’s face. It wasn’t long before it had fully materialized and a blue skin-like material had covered the whole of it.

We stood transfixed as Pratt grew eyes, a nose, and mouth. The eyes were red with the dark pupils that had been haunting us all evening. As the moments passed, the whites of his eyes reappeared as the red faded away.

As my hope wavered, I thought about the monster I’d just killed in the hall with the propane. We could kill this one too. We’d just need a much bigger bomb. The four propane tanks that we had left weren't going to cut it. Even if we returned for the tanks we'd left back in the lobby, those wouldn't be enough to do much good either.

But what else was I to do? Perhaps the four tanks would be enough of a distraction to let us get away.

When Pratt opened his mouth, his voice sounded like a swarm of bees, as if all the blutom in his body was contributing to the vibrations needed to give him a voice. 

“Flesh and bone on this planet are so versatile.” Pratt smiled, blackened gums lining his mouth. I thought I could see the beginnings of teeth forming. “And so easy to master.”

“Hold them.” I grabbed one of Madelyn’s hands and pulled it to the bar on the other door. “Get down.” I grabbed up my last propane tank from where it sat on the floor and Madelyn’s as well. I tossed them both, one right after another into the mass of blutom around Pratt’s legs. 

The first one hit with a plopping sound, bits of blutom splashing out and hitting the floor. It then sunk right into the material and was lost to view. The second hit Pratt in the chest and would have caused him to lose his balance if he wouldn’t have been surrounded by all the blutom. It rolled far enough away from him that I doubted it would do much damage that he couldn’t immediately recover from.

Pratt looked down at the tanks with a smirk. “Your weapons become cruder. Throwing rocks now, are we?”

“Get down!” I screamed, pumping a shell into my shotgun as I aimed for the one that had disappeared into the blutom. I fired at the same time I slammed the shell home. I could have sworn that time slowed down enough I was able to watch my slug as it moved through the air, penetrating the blutom, and then making contact with the first tank that had been completely enveloped by the blutom.

The sound of the explosion was muffled somewhat and blutom flew out in every direction. Concerned some of the flying shrapnel would come after us, I tackled Madelyn to the floor and belatedly realized I’d left the doors unguarded.

Pete screamed. Cursing, I shielded Madelyn with my body, expecting flying hot metal to come cutting through me at any time. I counted to three before I looked up. There was less blutom around Pratt now and half of his right leg was being healed, but in just a few moments he healed completely and smiled all the more. It was as if the damage hadn’t even happened.

I grabbed my shotgun and leaped to my feet. “There wasn’t enough gas. Slammer, chuck yours into him and then I’ll try to hit all three—”

Pete clutched his chest as blood spilled out of him, a piece of twisted metal coming out from between his fingers. I cried out as several small balls of blutom disappeared into the wound before Pete could stop them. His face wrenched in horror as he tried to reach into the gaping hole to pull them out, but he yanked his hand back with a cry.

If it would have been somewhere else, a foot, a hand, an arm, or a leg, I would have tried amputation to keep him from shifting, but with it being right in his chest, there was nothing we could do to kill the blutom that wouldn’t also kill him too.

“Shoot me,” Pete said.

I shook my head. “Dead or alive, they’ll use your body anyway.” Looking about the room, I tried to think of anything I could do. Pete was going to shift and there was nothing I could do about it.  

“I lied about where the monsters came from.” Pete’s face was determined. He quickly continued before I could respond. “I was approached several months ago by somebody at work who felt the bureaucracy was keeping us from figuring out how the blutom really worked. They’d stolen some and set up an off-site lab.”

“Sheesh, Slammer!” If his goal was to make it easier for me to shoot him, he was going about it in the right way. I’d known my old friend had been lying to me all night, and now, on his deathbed, he’d finally decided to fess up to it. I gripped the stock of my shotgun and clenched my teeth. “What have—”

“Shut up! Let me finish. There’s a lot going on that I’ve haven’t told you. The battles among those that know about the blutom have been legendary. There are those that would use it to recreate the world.”

“It would appear they are succeeding,” I said.

“It’s not too late. We were working on something that would make humans repugnant to the blutom. There was an accident at our lab. I’m not sure what happened but that was why Veronica, Jen, and Kyle shifted.”

“Let me guess, this secondary lab was a much closer to the dorm?”

Pete licked his lips. “It’s on the second floor.”

“Man, Slammer! We were practically living with the stuff.” Many of my questions now answered themselves. “No wonder why you didn’t want to call the lab.”

“Yeah.”

“Did you guys make any progress?” I asked.

Pete shook his head. “Nothing that was workable. We were still in the early stages.”

“Everything that happened at the dorm was your fault.” Madelyn scowled. “Everything.”

Pete nodded.

“Yes, but we aren’t behind the attacks anywhere else.”

“When you saw the news,” I said, “you figured you were in the clear because they would just chalk it up to the attack on the city.”

Pete made a face. “Not exactly. There are a number of different strains. The one we stole was the worst one.” He nodded towards Pratt. “I’d wager Pratt is a descendant of that strain.”

“All this to just cover your butt.” I growled. “All the lying. Man, Pete, you really disappoint me.” 

“None of this was our fault. It was just a freak accident at our lab, that’s all.”

“And you’ve nothing to show for it other than a few deaths that are directly on your head. No wonder why you’ve been worried about being charged with treason all night! You’re the one who stole the blutom.”

“Not me directly.” Sweat poured down Pete’s face as he nodded. “Please, you’ve got to shoot me. I don’t want to know what it feels like to be taken over. There were some who thought the soul of the rats were still there, hostages in their own body. Please. Please. Please.” He fell to his knees. It killed me to see him beg for death.

I almost did. Heaven help me, I almost did. I brought up my shotgun, fingering the trigger, and going so far as to apply pressure to it. But that’s where I stopped.

Pete was my friend and though the consequences of his actions were severe, this wasn’t entirely his fault. He’d been trying to position himself to fight against the very thing we’d been dealing with all night.

In a way, it was almost a good thing Pete had descended into my room with the swarm of monsters behind him. It had given us a warning of things to come. Otherwise, we might have been asleep in bed and awoken to a new world.

Or worse, never come to at all.

Pratt’s laughter filled the room. It no longer sounded like a swarm of bees. It was deep and filled with scorn. “You can’t fight me. I heal, Mr. Sanders will not.” He smiled wickedly. His face was pale but white, and every aspect of him had returned to normal. Even his hair was back now. The blutom that had been destroyed in the blast had been replaced as if nothing had happened. “You’re doing my job for me. Don’t you see? You’re just making the inevitable come faster.” He motioned to Pete.  “Come, your blood is mine. I hunger.”

Pete stayed where he was, his eyes fixed on me. I wondered how much of the blutom he needed to have in his body before he would obey Pratt’s voice. I could tell by the expectant look on Pratt’s face that there was no doubt Pete would obey, it was only a matter of time.

I hated to admit it, I hated, even more, to have to do it, but I couldn’t see any other option as I slowly pulled up my shotgun and leveled it at my friend. “Are you sure about this?”

The doors behind me flung open and I spun prepared to meet the onslaught of blutom monsters. I was surprised to see instead that it was Claire Kinsley, armed with a flame thrower. Ricky was at her side as well as the other monsters that had been chasing after us. I was happy to see the man-dog hybrid I’d destroyed with the exploding tank wasn’t among them.

Claire pulled the trigger of her weapon and I dodged out of the way as flame encompassed the room. Rolling to my feet, I made a beeline for Madelyn who was already running to the only free corner. Expecting to feel my back lit up, I pushed faster until I realized I’d put on too much speed to stop gracefully. Holding my shotgun back with one hand, I slowed and used my other to buffer my crash against the wall. Luckily, Madelyn saw me in time and was able to dodge out of the way.

My hand slid on the blutom slickened wall, put I pushed my shoulder into it and was able to slide to a stop by wedging myself into the corner. I flipped around, bringing my shotgun to bear, my finger slipping on the trigger from the blutom on my hand.

I was utterly shocked by what I saw next.

Claire hadn’t come after us at all. She advanced on Pratt and was aiming the flamethrower at all the blutom that was piled around his legs.

PETE HADN’T MOVED and was halfway between Claire and me. He made eye contact with me and made a bunch of hand motions. I shook my head, assuming he was still trying to get me to finish the job of killing him. Now the moment had passed, I wasn’t too keen on bringing it up again. Not only was I hesitant about killing my friend, but Claire was right behind him. I was thankful that she was distracted by Pratt and not coming after us as well.

The monsters were all focused on Pratt too, somehow she’d calmed them down and apparently got them to help her out with her assault on Pratt. Hadn’t these twisted hybrids been his creation? 

I didn’t care what was going on there. It was enough that she was now attacking him.

My eyes settled on the open door. Madelyn and I could still get away.

Madelyn touched my arm. “Pete’s trying to get your attention.”  

“Mad, I don’t care how much he begs, I’m not going to shoot him.”

“I don’t think that’s it.”

I followed her finger to Pete. When we made eye contact, he pointed to the forgotten propane tanks and pantomimed throwing them at Pratt. Then he pointed at me and made his hand into a gun. His message was unmistakable.

It was a good plan, but I doubted it would work. There was just too much blutom in the room to be destroyed that way, even if we managed to bunch the tanks close enough together that they all went off in unison. 

But a bad plan was better than no plan.

I pointed at the door and held up my fingers, hoping he’d understand that I wanted him to wait until the count of five to give us a chance to get to the door. He nodded his head.

“You follow all that?” Madelyn asked. When I didn’t respond she continued. “What he’s proposing is our only option.”

“We’re not leaving him.” It was a shallow attempt and I knew it. “At least, we shouldn’t.”

Madelyn leaned in until she was staring me directly in the eye. “I don’t see another way out of this. Hopefully, he and the monster he’ll become will both be killed in the blast. It’s the best we can hope for. It fairest to him.”

“If only it had been somewhere else. He could have gotten through this.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“We could have amputated a leg or an arm.” I shook my head as I loaded several shells into my shotgun, checking as I did to make sure that they were all slugs. Even though the magazine tube wasn’t empty, it was best to have as many as possible ready to go. “You ready?”

Madelyn squeezed my hand. “Yep.”

I smiled, though it didn’t reflect the torrent of emotion inside of me. “I’m going to need that hand, but you can have it afterward.” After holding it for a few more seconds, she released it.

“Let’s go,” I said. “Let me go through the door first, just in case.”

As we set off at a run, I noticed that several balls of blutom had formed and were rolling up my arm. Grinding my teeth, I had no choice but to let them remain because I wasn’t going to slow down to remove them now. I just hoped Pete was right that a wound was needed in order to shift and that the wounds I’d cauterized had been sealed well enough to keep the blutom out of me. 

Despite my run, I moved carefully, keeping an eye on Pratt and Claire as I did. She was still going at him with the flamethrower, but she was also keeping her distance. Pratt had caused the blutom to form a protective shield in front of him and as quick as she burned it off, it was replaced by more blutom streaming into it. The blutom on the walls and ceiling all moved towards Pratt. As I watched, a large blob of it draped down from the ceiling to support the rapidly diminishing blutom shield. As the reinforcement made contact, the shield grew in height and expanded in width.

I could hear Pratt laughing over the roar of the flamethrower. He said something to Claire but I was unable to make out the words.

When we reached the door, I let out my breath, unaware I’d been holding it while we’d crossed the room. I felt silly stopping at the door and checking before I went out because of all the dangerous stuff happening behind us in the room, but I figured it was best to make sure Claire hadn’t left several of her monsters to guard the door to keep us from escaping.

When I saw the way was clear, I practically yanked Madelyn’s arm out of her socket as I pulled her through the door to safety. She gave me a reproving look but I ignored it as I racked a shell home in the quiet of the hallway. I’d been unwilling to do it while in the room, afraid that the sound of me pumping the shotgun would have drawn unwanted attention, though, there was enough noise coming from the battle between Pratt and Claire that it was doubtful anybody would have heard it anyway.

I poked my head back inside. Pete faced us, his eyes were beginning to glaze over. I couldn’t tell if he had blood on his neck or if the blood film was beginning to form already.

He stood up, clutching his chest as if trying to stop the flow of blood. It was plain to me that the blutom had already done a thorough job of that. When he’d first been wounded, I had assumed it had been a mortal blow, but now that I paid closer attention I saw that the shrapnel had embedded itself in his right breast and didn’t appear to have gone very deep at all. If it wouldn’t have been for the blutom, his life likely wouldn’t have been in any danger at all. We would have just needed to get him to the hospital as fast as we could.

I bit back a curse as he walked towards his propane tanks, his eyes on Claire as he moved. Ricky’s tongue was out, as he took deep breaths. The other monsters, a woman and two men, were in various states of health. One of the men was missing a hand, but I could see the blutom was working on replacing the missing appendage. I wondered how that had happened, but doubted it had been one of us who had caused the damage. The healing hand was moving at a much slower pace than anything I’d seen Pratt do today. The key to healing had to be the amount of blutom the monster had available.

Pete reached down and picked up the tanks, his blood-slickened hands wrapping around the handles.

Claire and Pratt didn’t pay attention to Pete as he slowly approached Pratt. Perhaps Pratt just assumed that Pete was finally following his order. Claire might not have known what those propane tanks could do. Pratt had thought we were just throwing rocks at him. That was further evidence the blutom didn’t have access to the mind of the individuals they shifted.

The blutom around Pratt had rapidly disappeared as he’d shunted it forward into his shield to keep Claire’s flame thrower from reaching him.

Pete sprinted forward, ducking around the blutom shield without any problem. The sudden movement drew a raised eyebrow from Claire but she didn’t take any other action.

One of the tanks that I had tossed earlier was still right in front of Pratt. Pete chucked the others right down next to it. As he turned to run, a tendril of blutom shot out from the pile that surrounded Pratt and wrapped around Pete’s leg.

Pratt said something, but I couldn’t hear it over the cacophony that already filled the room. His face was pale and strained, there was a glisten on his cheeks that might have been sweat; though, I wasn’t certain if the blutom monsters were capable of such a thing.

I brought up my shotgun and sighted in on one of the propane tanks at Pratt’s feet. Most of the blutom that had been there before was now gone. The other two tanks were on either side. If I were to hit the one, shrapnel from the explosion would hopefully light up the other two. The compounding explosions might just be enough to finish off Pratt, and if we were lucky, Claire and the others as well.

Poor Pete was too close to not be destroyed.

The wall of blutom that had been keeping Claire’s flamethrower from reaching Pratt was rapidly deteriorating. In a few more minutes, it would be gone. Of course, the flamethrower had to be running out of fuel as well.

“Do it,” Madelyn urged. “Shoot the tanks!”    

“Wait.” If I waited for Claire to do as much damage as she could and then fired, I could remove the hellish den in one fell swoop.

Pete’s feet were covered with blutom, encasing him in a way that reminded me of those bad movies where a person had the tendril of some animal wrapped around his leg. Pete struggled against Pratt, but it was easy to see it was a losing battle. I momentarily sighted my shotgun onto Pete, but I was unwilling to pull the trigger. It was irrational, I suppose, but there was a large part of me that still hoped Pete would be able to beat the blutom shifting process that was no doubt most of the way done spreading through his system.

“What are you waiting for?” Madelyn’s fingernails were digging into my arm with enough force that she probably wasn’t too far away from drawing blood if she hadn’t already.

“Easy on the arm,” I said. “I don’t want a way for the blutom to shift into me too.” A dark chuckle escaped my lips. “What a way to die? Killed by a scratch from my ex.”

“Would you stop clowning around and blow the place? How much longer before they stop ignoring us and decide they’re hungry too?”

Pratt’s blutom shield was still being fed by the blutom coming down from the ceiling but it wasn’t nearly as wide as it had been. The blutom monsters with Claire moved as if to attack Pratt but Claire called them down, telling them to stay where they were.

I furrowed my brow as the monsters stopped. Once the monsters were done shifting, would they still obey Claire or would they develop minds of their own? Pete was slowly being dragged to Pratt and I could see blutom tendrils entering in through his mouth. Any foolish hope I might have been holding onto was dashed as his cry was cut off and he made a choking sound.

“Pete’s gone. Nothing we can do to save him.” Madelyn pointed ahead. “But we can stop them.”

I looked at her finger, stunned to see that it was bloody. The cut was visible underneath the blood. “When did that happen?”

Madelyn recoiled in horror. “I don’t know.”

I rounded on her. “Think!”

I examined my arm and found blood, but it had to have come from her because I could see no wound on me. I had nail marks on my skin from where she’d grabbed me but the blood wasn’t mine. My heart sunk as I grabbed her wounded hand. It was a small laceration, no bigger than half an inch. The blood hadn’t even started to clot yet, so it was still fresh.

“Did you touch the wall?” I searched her for any blutom but it was dark and I wasn’t able to make out anything clearly enough to know for sure.

“Maybe. I’m gonna die too, aren’t I?”

I fished into my backpack and pulled out the athletic tape. “Use your lighter to cauterize the wound and then cover it up, use the whole roll if you have too. You might not be infected.”

Cursing and then muttering a prayer, I spun around and brought up my shotgun. Pratt’s shield was still there, but Claire has stopped using the flamethrower. The two were talking but I couldn’t make out what they were saying.

Or rather, I didn’t have the patience to try and understand it. My heart pounded in my chest, sweat slicked down my back, and I felt like I was going to be sick. When I checked on Madelyn, she was wiping the blood on her shirt and fumbling with the lighter. Tears flowed down her pale face, her eyes wide as she tried to take care of the wound.

I tried telling myself it was only a small wound and that she could get it closed up in time. A voice in the back of my head laughed bitterly. Deep down, I didn’t believe a word of it.

Pete sprung to his feet and charged Claire, I could easily discern the blood film on his face now. The wild look in his eyes let me know that my friend was no longer there. I wasn’t surprised it had happened so quickly, I was beginning to think that the amount of blutom available was also what determined the speed of conversion. Pratt had pumped Pete full of the stuff. 

I had a really bad feeling that everything Pete had learned about blutom had been a ruse put on by the blutom. Why had Pratt shoved blutom down Pete’s throat if it wasn’t a valid way of converting an individual? Pratt and Claire were shouting at one another and even though it was audible, it was in a language that sounded as far from english as it could get.

No wonder why I hadn’t been able to follow along.

Pete was clobbered by the two other male blutom monsters, but he wasn’t down for long. He flung one off and then broke the arm of the other.

“Just do it already!” Madelyn snapped. “Finish it already. Pete’s gone, there’s nothing more we can do.”

The argument had reached such a volume that I was beginning to wonder if maybe one of us should pull out a phone and I try to record it. If we could ever get it to somebody in the government—assuming there still would be a government if we got out of this alive—a sample of their language might be useful.

I had just opened my mouth to make the suggestion when Ricky sprung forward, ripping through the blutom shield and knocking it down. The legs I had damaged before had been replaced with blackened sinews and bone. I wondered if Ricky would grow back the flesh and fur as well.

“Get back!” I said, pushing Madelyn. “Behind the door!” With the blutom wall down, I sighted in on the propane tank in the middle of the other two and pulled the trigger. I dove after Madelyn just as the first explosion rocked the air around us. The air compressed and my eardrums popped. The first explosion was followed by two more that were so close in unison they may as well have been one.