Fast (36 page)

            ‘Shit - the surfactant!’ yelled Coleman. ‘Come on, Marlin. Crawl faster!’

            Marlin glanced over his shoulder into the approaching fire tunnel.

            The fire moved faster than the creatures, faster than Marlin, faster than any living thing could possibly crawl through the shafts. It moved like it was born with a malign purpose.

            It was born to burn.

            Coleman saw the bone-weary exhaustion in Marlin’s movements. His every movement was a massive effort. He looked beyond exhausted.

            ‘This way,’ yelled Coleman, ignoring the defeated look in his friend’s eyes as Marlin turned his back on the creatures and the flames. ‘Hurry! You can beat it!’

            Marlin shook his head slightly.

            There was just no point running anymore.

            Behind Marlin, the fire engulfed the creatures. The creatures stood out against the bright flames for a split-second and then disappeared. Three butterflies disintegrated ahead of the flames.

            One moment Marlin stared into Coleman’s eyes -

            - and the next moment he became a human flashlight.

            A screaming fire elemental trapped in the shaft.

            The fire-wave wrapped Marlin in a bright red blanket. He had collected so much surfactant that he ignited like everything else.

            The roar of the surfactant dulled Marlin’s screams. And then Marlin disappeared behind the charging front of the fire. Coleman watched his friend until the last second, then turned and raced ahead of the flames into the riser.

            If he didn’t move fast, he would burn like Marlin. Emerging into the riser, Coleman grabbed the recessed handholds and hauled himself hand over hand up the side.

            Liquid fire poured into the shaft below his boots. The entire base of the riser erupted with a surge of intense heat. Coleman climbed above the inferno. But the fire hadn’t stopped. It raced up the walls around him.

            Lurching himself up, desperately grabbing two and then three handholds at a time, he saw the fire climbing the riser past his left shoulder.

            ‘Climb! Climb!’ yelled King from above.

            Then the surfactant, heavier than normal air, thinned out and Coleman pulled ahead of the climbing flames.

            A strong hand grasped his shoulder webbing and dragged him over the edge. The heat increased incredibly as he and King scrambled away from the riser.

            King pushed Coleman down a ventilation hatch through the habitation level ceiling. King tumbled out after him, grabbing the edge of the vent and swinging his feet down before he dropped.

            Vanessa and Forest had made the same escape, and were anxiously watching the ventilation hatch for Marlin.

            After a few moments, when nothing but a heat-haze emerged, they looked towards Coleman. Coleman climbed to his feet after his awkward drop to the floor.

            ‘He didn’t make it,’ he said, meeting their eyes one by one until he was looking at King. ‘I saw Marlin get caught in the fire. He was badly injured before the fire reached him.’

            King’s hands shook. He looked ready to tear the walls apart to find his friend.

            ‘How badly was he injured?’ hissed King. His voice sounded like it was falling apart in his chest. ‘More than just his leg?’

            Coleman nodded. He didn’t want to explain how Marlin had looked just before the end. ‘It looked like he tangled with the creatures in the shafts again, after he got caught the first time.’

            King made a monumental effort to stay calm. His breath shook as he exhaled. He asked, ‘So Marlin took on the creatures head-to-head,
twice
, and then got burnt just before he reached the riser?’

            ‘That’s what it looked like,’ Coleman answered quietly. ‘He was pretty messed up.’

            ‘But he was alive when the fire reached him?’

            ‘Yeah. He was almost at the riser.’ Coleman reached out and steadied himself against a cabinet. He felt dizzy after the intense heat.

            ‘You’re blistering,’ said Vanessa, spotting Coleman’s hand. ‘We’ll have something for that in here.’

           
In here?
thought Coleman.

            He realized they occupied a small medical center. He was leaning against a cabinet full of syringes and vials. The smell was instantly recognizable. It smelled like his home town’s doctors surgery. It even had a similar feel, right down to the dog-eared magazines and saltwater fish tank. Beside the fish tank a handwritten notice read: Health assessments in the gymnasium every Tuesday afternoon, 3pm.

            Coleman realized the medical center was designed
to feel familiar, no doubt one of the techniques used to reduce the anxiety of staff living and working in the isolated, underground Complex.

            The medical center had been spared from the creatures’ rampage. The sliding doors seemed intact. Coleman recalled that the medical center was located roughly in the center of the hub, not far from the pool room. Judging from the equipment, the center’s primary goal was to stabilize patients before relocation to better-equipped facilities. It would never have coped with today’s casualties.

            But by the look of it, someone had tried. Medical supplies lay scattered all over the floor

            Staring down at the supplies, Coleman felt a surreal sense of shock about losing Marlin. It wasn’t just that. Last time he’d been on the habitation level, the entire scene resembled pure anarchy as people ran screaming for the safety of somewhere other-than-here.

            Now it was deadly quiet. Same place, different feel. But the feeling was almost as bad.

            Vanessa gave up rummaging inside the cabinet and got down on her hands and knees. She picked through the supplies scattered over the floor.

            ‘Gotcha,’ she said, plucking an aerosol spray from the mess.

            Coleman’s fatigues, boots and body armor had shielded most of his skin from the few seconds of intense heat, but the backs of his hands were blistered.

            ‘This is an anesthetic burn treatment.’ Vanessa shook the can. ‘It should stop any infection.’

            Coleman felt the cold spray hit his hand as she applied the treatment.

            ‘What now?’ asked Forest emptily, keeping watch through the glass doors.

            Coleman had just been asking himself that same question. ‘Now we’re back on the habitation level, I’m making it our first priority to contact the Evac Center. I need to make sure David’s OK.’

            Everyone nodded, and Vanessa searched around herself.

‘I think I know a way to reach David,’ she said. ‘It’s close too.’

Coleman hoped she was right. He added, ‘And we need to broadcast a distress signal to the
Coronado
. I’m open to suggestions of how we do that.’

            Coleman directed his question at King.

            King hadn’t noticed. He was staring up at the vent. The vent where his best friend had just been torn apart by creatures and then burned alive.

            Coleman knew that King had no family left. When able, King had spent his Sunday lunches for the last four years at Marlin’s family table, with Marlin’s three sisters and mother. Coleman had joined them a few times, and was surprised to see the massive man smiling so much, washing plates, his hulking figure bending over the sink while Marlin dried the dishes. His deep laugh boomed through the house as Marlin quietly cracked jokes.

            Maybe King was thinking about that right now.

            ‘King,’ said Coleman. ‘I know how you feel. I feel exactly the same way, but we need to keep our heads in the game. We need to send out a distress signal. Any suggestions?’

            King lowered his gaze from the vent.

            He stared at Coleman, his dark features unreadable. A very intelligent man dwelled within that hulking exterior. He was a loyal Marine, but at the end of the day, friendship meant everything to King.

            Coleman wondered if he had a problem. The time to grieve for Marlin would come later, otherwise they would all end up like Marlin.

            Dead-pan, King replied, ‘Fifth Unit carried an executive communications pack. If we can find their equipment, we can contact the
Coronado
.’

            Hearing the logical suggestion, Coleman dismissed his concerns. King was still thinking like a professional. And he was right. If they could find Fifth Unit’s radio equipment, they could hump the radio outside the Complex beyond the blackout zone.

‘But where’s the equipment?’ asked Forest.

            The last time Coleman had heard from Fifth Unit, they had been on this level, heading towards the pool room. They never showed up. Coleman knew that a team fighting a running battle left signs of their passing. It shouldn’t be too hard for him to track them.

            A different problem worried him now.

            ‘Something else is worrying me,’ he admitted. ‘There could only have been a dozen creatures up in those vents chasing us. If there had been more, we would never have outmaneuvered them.’

            ‘So where the hell are all the other creatures?’ asked Vanessa, picking up on Coleman’s train of thought.

            She unconsciously reached down to her tablet. ‘And what are they doing?’

            ‘Exactly,’ said Coleman. ‘How much ammunition do we have left?’

            Forest knew without checking. ‘Three and a half magazines between all of us.’

            Coleman had only half a magazine left in his assault rifle. After that he was down to his colt.

            ‘We can’t sustain any more face-to-face confrontation. We need to use stealth. Fifth Unit initially deployed through the north stairwell. I think I know a way we can cross to the north stairwell without being noticed.’

            Coleman nodded to Vanessa. ‘Show me how we can contact David.’

            Vanessa moved to the small rear door in the medical center. She opened the door slightly to peer through the crack. Beyond lay the school classroom. A common wall joined the two facilities.

            She quietly opened the door and scanned the classroom. Coleman hardly heard the others following them, which was exactly what he wanted.

            Clearly there had been an attempt to keep the classroom as normal-looking as possible. On the walls hung children’s paintings and multiplication tables. Lunch-bags and pullovers hung from hooks near the door. A whiteboard displayed an interrupted lesson in long-division. Coleman saw where pencils had been abandoned when the alarm sounded.

            ‘This is his desk here,’ said Vanessa, touching a desktop as she crossed the room.

            ‘It was lucky the children were so close to the evacuation tunnel,’ Coleman observed.

            ‘It wasn’t luck,’ Vanessa corrected. ‘We designed it that way.’

            Coleman reached the other side of the classroom. He looked out the partly open door.

            Christ.