Origin (30 page)

There was faint applause, then a recognizable soda jingle. Dr. Belgium hummed along with it.

Down the hall, at Helen’s old room, the door opened.

“Uh-oh,” Frank said.

The Helen demon stepped out into the hallway, hoofs clicking on the tile floor. Andy noted that it was three times as big as that alligator monster they’d just killed. The curtain rod suddenly felt ineffectual.

“We should go back up the vent,” Andy said softly.

“Come on,” Sun tugged him. “In here.”

They slipped silently into Yellow 9, an empty closet.

“It’s too big” Andy whispered. “We won’t be able to kill it.”

“Maybe we can sneak past it.”

The three of them cautiously peeked out the doorway. The demon had moved down the hall and stopped in front of Yellow 4. It sniffed at the keypad, then squatted down next to the door.

“That’s where Race is,” Dr. Belgium said. “The bomb room.”

They waited. Minutes passed. The demon stayed put.

Andy checked his watch. They had thirteen minutes left.

“We’re running out of time,” Dr. Belgium said. “We have to distract it, yes yes yes.”

“Sure. I’ll throw a stick, see if it’ll fetch.”

“We should attack,” Sun said.

Andy stared at her, incredulous. “It practically killed Race, and he’s a lot tougher than we are.”

“Hold on.” Belgium rubbed his chin. “If it watches TV, maybe part of Helen is still in there somewhere. Let me try to talk to her.”

The demon yawned, showing more teeth than a dog kennel.

“Maybe that’s not too smart of an idea,” Sun said.

“I have to try. Helen?” Belgium stepped out of the closet, his hands raised in supplication. “It’s me, Frank. Remember?”

The demon leapt to its feet and turned to face Belgium, red eyes narrowing.

Belgium took a slow step towards it.

“Hello, Helen. Remember how I used to come to your room and we’d play checkers?”

A guttural sound came from the Helen-thing’s mouth.

“See see see?” Frank said. “She remembers.”

He took another step forward.

“This is going to end badly,” Andy whispered to Sun. “We should do something.”

“Frank…” Sun warned.

“It’s okay.” Belgium shooed them back. “Helen, we could play checkers again someday. Would you like that?”

The demon’s wings suddenly opened, and it stretched out its arms the width of the hallway, scraping at the plaster with its talons.

“Frank,” Andy said slowly, “I don’t think the hellspawn wants to play checkers with you.”

“I know part of you is still human,” Belgium went on. “Maybe we could somehow change you back. If not, well… I understand there are some very nice zoos.”

The creature howled and launched itself down the hall.

“Run, Frank!”

Belgium backpedaled, then turned around and passed up Andy and Sun.

The demon sprang, knocking Sun aside and latching its claws onto Andy’s shoulder. Its grip was agonizing. Andy swung at its face and the beast snapped down on his hand, razor teeth slicing into his wrist. Andy screamed and tried frantically to yank it free.

Sun maced the creature in the face. The creature didn’t seem to be bothered much, but when the pepper spray hit Andy’s chewed hand, he reached a whole new level of pain.

From the corner of his eye, he watched the demon swat Sun away.

“Andy!” Dr. Belgium yelled.

He rushed up to Helen and rammed the cattle prod into the demon’s mouth, past the sharp teeth, and bent upward.

Andy pulled out his hand, giving Belgium more room to jam the prod in further, down the thing’s throat.

The effect was immediate. The demon dropped Andy and grabbed the biologist, drawing him close in a bear hug. It shook its head back and forth, trying to dislodge the obstruction.

Frank kept his grip on the prod and shoved once more, grunting with effort. It went down the demon’s throat almost to the hilt. Then he turned the handle and gave the beast some juice.

Helen’s whole body went rigid, smoke curling out the corners of her mouth. She released Frank and collapsed onto the floor, her red eyes rolling up in her head.

Sun jumped on her with the curtain rod, swinging it over and over, until the demon’s head cracked open like a dropped watermelon.

Helen twitched twice, then ceased all movement.

“Well,” Belgium said. “That was horrible.” He nudged the creature with his foot. “Dead dead dead.”

Andy clutched his wrist. Blood spurted through his fingers with his heartbeat, a good amount of it pooling on the floor.

He dropped to his knees.

An artery,
Sun thought, looking at Andy.

She knelt next to him. He was pale, his face clammy and cold, his breathing shallow. A quick inspection of the wound found it to be ugly; the creature had bit him almost to the bone. She took Andy’s pulse. Weak. She unbuckled his belt and pulled it off his waist, cinching it tight about the wound.

“Hold here,” she told Belgium, taking his hand and putting it on Andy’s wrist below the tourniquet. “Don’t let him close his eyes.”

Sun ran down the hall into the Med Supply room, Yellow 6. She grabbed everything in a whirlwind; a hundred cc bag of saline solution with an IV drip, a surgical needle, a bottle of rubbing alcohol, a pack of cotton swabs, a scalpel, a gallon jug of sterile water. She searched quickly for clamps, but couldn’t find any.

The hell with it; there was no time. If she didn’t stop the bleeding now, Sun knew Andy was going to die.

“Pour this on your hands,” she said to Belgium, tossing him the alcohol. When he finished, she repeated the procedure with her own hands and then poured the remaining alcohol onto Andy’s wound.

He moaned weakly.

“Open the scalpel package,” Sun told Belgium. “Pour some water on him, clear away the blood.”

Keeping pressure on his wrist, Sun spread open the gash with her fingers to peer inside. The blood flow had stopped, so she loosened the belt to see its source.

When the blood came, it came fast.

“Now.”

Belgium poured, washing blood away. The ulnar artery was completely severed, as was the medial antebrachial vein. The radial artery had a gash in it. Sun cinched the belt tight.

“Scalpel,” Sun ordered, “and open the needle pack.”

Belgium complied. Sun cut into Andy’s flesh, lengthening the width of the wound so she could fit her fingers in. Andy yelped and tried to pull away.

“Hold his arm steady. You can’t let him squirm.”

“Okay okay okay.”

“You see, here? I need you to put your fingers on that artery and squeeze.”

Belgium kept one hand on Andy’s forearm and stuck the other into the gash, doing what he was told.

Sun poured more water on the wound, then took hold of the pre-threaded half-moon needle.

“Don’t worry,” she told Andy. “I’m gonna do this right. Just hold real still.”

Sun tied off the artery, greatly reducing the blood flow. She didn’t have a clamp to hold the needle, so she did it freehand, her fingers slick with blood. Belgium had to let go of Andy’s twitching forearm to dump more water on the wound.

Quickly, expertly, Sun sutured the ulnar artery back together. Her next job was the gash in the radial. It was on the underside and tough to see. “Hold him,” Sun said. She tied the artery off and then tugged on it lightly to get a better look.

“Jesus!” Andy cried.

“You’re not getting religious on me, are you?” Sun said.

Sun sewed up the radial artery, then got to work on the severed antebrachial vein. Her concentration was pinpoint. She was tired, hurt all over, and emotionally frazzled, but she wouldn’t allow it to get in the way of her job.

Not this time.

She finished, and then cut the thread she’d used to tie off the arteries. They filled with pumping blood. Sun poured on more water and looked for leaks.

None.

She smiled to herself.

“Get something to put under his feet,” Sun told Belgium.

Andy’s blood pressure was still weak. She ripped open the IV pack and dug the needle into a vein on his good hand. Belgium came back with a chair and raised Andy’s feet up onto the seat.

“I have to close him up, what’s our time?”

Belgium glanced at Andy’s watch.

“Four minutes.”

“Find Race, shut off the bomb.”

Belgium nodded, hurrying off.

Sun hung the saline bag on the end of the chair and began to stitch Andy’s wrist closed.

“You’ll make it,” she told him. “But I don’t know if we will.”

R
ace was dying.

It suited him just fine. Losing Helen was devastating. He’d spent years trying to become emotionally detached, and then for one brief, magic moment, she was his again, body and soul.

He realized, after more than four decades of marriage, that he’d made the wrong choice. Helen was more important than Samhain, more important than even his beloved Army. Race should have cherished his years with her, rather than wasted them here.

And now she was gone.

Bub’s words had hit home. Helen surely must have hated him for keeping her here all that time. When she developed Huntington’s, Race considered her his burden. But all along, he was her burden.

Race welcomed death. The thought of it warmed him. Never a religious man, the one in a million chance that there was an afterlife, and that Helen might be there waiting for him, far outweighed his desire for this world.

“Race?” A knock. “It’s Frank Belgium. The door is locked. Are you in there?”

“Yeah, I’m here.”

The words took great effort. Race figured he’d lost more than two pints of blood.

“Can you let me in?”

“Code is 1-7-1-9-5-9.”

His wedding anniversary.

The lock disengaged and Dr. Belgium came into the room. He was just as bloody as Race, his lab coat more red than white.

“How did you get through Lockdown?”

“Air ducts.”

“Helen?” Race asked.

“She’s at peace now. I’m sorry. Dr. Harker is dead too. Andy’s badly hurt.”

“Bub?”

“Still locked in the Red Arm.”

Race sighed painfully. “For a hundred years of planning and safeguards, it all went to hell pretty fast.”

“The best laid plans often go astray,” the biologist said. “It’s not your fault.”

“Of course it’s my fault. Armies don’t lose wars. Leaders lose wars.”

“Race…” Belgium put a hand on his shoulder. “We want you to shut off the nuke.”

The General said nothing.

“We’ve known each other what, twenty years? You know why I came to Samhain, right?”

Race nodded.

“General, I let Bub out of the habitat. He went on the Internet. All of those questions he answered… it was all garbage garbage garbage. Stuff he picked up off the web.”

“Stupid thing to do.”

“I know. You think I would have learned after twenty years.”

Belgium eased himself into a sitting position, next to Race.

“Did you know I was married?”

Race gave his head a slight shake.

“I thought I loved her, but in reality I suppose didn’t. All I ever loved was my work. Such a beautiful thing, genetics. So beautiful and perfect. Perfect perfect perfect.”

Belgium stared deeply into Race’s eyes. “That’s what life is all about, General. Loving something. Maybe a person, or a thing, but something. Like you loved Helen.”

The General’s eyes became glassy.

“You’ve seen Andy and Sun together… Race, we’re older, you and I. We’ve lived our lives. And we’ve had to live with our mistakes. Please. I can’t let them die. Not because of me.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Race said. “I switch off the nuke, the President will still destroy Samhain. It’s a hardened target, two hundred feet underground, but he could get it done within two hours.”

“At least that gives us two more hours. You, above all people, should know how precious a few hours can be.”

Race knew.

“How about that?” Helen had said, zipping up her evening gown only hours before. “Still fits.”

“You know you’re even more beautiful than the day I met you,” Race told her.

She smiled. It lit up the room. Race would have given her the world, right then, if she’d only asked.

“Oh, Regis. This is so perfect, being with you right now. I love you, my dear.”

“I love you too, Helen. Now let’s cut up that rug, shall we?”

He could still smell her perfume on him, beneath all the blood.

“The panel,” Race told Belgium. “Turn the switch to the left, then punch in these numbers. Six, three, six, zero, niner.”

Belgium stood up and punched in the code. There was a beep, and the timer stopped with two minutes to spare.

“Is there another way out of Samhain?” Belgium asked.

Race coughed. A thin line of blood dripped down his chin.

“Maybe. Most of Samhain is made of natural caverns—this area is full of them. When they were building this compound, they came in through the underground from a few miles away. Then they sealed off the connecting tunnel when they were done.”

“Where is it?”

“Somewhere in the Green Arm. You need to bust through a wall, I don’t know which one. You’ll have to find the old blueprints. They should be in Red 3.”