I couldn’t figure out how to buzz the door open for JoJo and Rocky. They were screaming into the camera now, their faces mashed together as if they were trying to crawl through the lens.
I hauled Laura to her feet. “Open the door!” I shouted.
She blinked twice and then snapped back to life.
With trembling hands she keyed in a code, and the door clicked open. JoJo and Rocky leapt through into the decontamination room. As Rocky swung the door closed behind them, one of the Hatchlings hammered into it, knocking them both onto the floor. The door whammed shut and autolocked. Already the fans and UV lights were going, sterilizing the air around Rocky and JoJo in the Lucite-walled room.
There came a dull thud and then another, the percussion quickening as more and more Hatchlings hurled themselves against the concrete walls. A clawed hand struck the slit window, leaving an orange dab. The windows were narrow, but still wide enough that a Hatchling could wriggle through. It was only a matter of time.
“The saltwater misters!” one of the scientists cried.
Laura initiated the system, saline solution humming through the pipes. A moment later we heard screeching from outside. The other scientist called up various feeds on the monitors. The sight was horrendous—Hatchlings melting along the sides of the building or staggering away, clawing at themselves. More and more swept in toward us, trampling the wounded.
“There are too many,” Laura said. “We’ll never hold them off.”
The decontamination process finally finished with Rocky and JoJo, the glass door clicking open. JoJo spilled into my arms, terrified.
“Ben told them where you were,” she said.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Ben’s alive?”
“He was,” Rocky said. “But after he told them where you guys were, they didn’t need him anymore. The Queen, she … she fed him to the Hatchlings.”
JoJo’s voice, hushed with horror: “It was awful.”
Alex lowered her head, closed her eyes for a second. We didn’t know what to say or feel. Ben had shown his true colors again and again, but even he didn’t deserve that fate.
JoJo said, “We raced here to warn you.”
“Thank God you did,” Laura told her. “We’d have been down below. They would have caught us off guard. It would’ve been a bloodbath.”
“It still might be,” another scientist said, pointing to the monitors.
The mound of carrion at the base of the walls was growing, flesh layering on top of flesh. Each new wave of Hatchlings used the mounting pile as a foothold to jump higher toward the windows.
A melting face rose into view, smacking the pane, all black eyes and flaring nostril holes. The glass spiderwebbed. Another vaulted into brief view, soaring above the glass. We waited to see him drop.
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.