The Dark Rift: Redemption (17 page)

"Officer Wending?" Billy whispered.

Chuck turned toward Billy. "Uh, yeah. Okay. Let me go first," he said.

"I was hoping you'd say that," Billy said.

Chuck crept slowly up to the corner and looked down the darkened hallway, not able to see more than twenty feet. He leaned back and turned around. "Stay close to me, all of you. We're almost there. We'll go right into the room where Fester is. If any of those things try to follow, we'll fight them from inside that room. At least that'll give us some protection. Okay, everyone?"

The group nodded. Hunter wagged his tail, seemed anxious to get moving again, too. Chuck wanted to reach down and pet the dog, but thought better of it. He felt sad that even Hunter was scared of him. "Okay, follow me," Chuck said. "We'll move quickly."

A rumbling vibration swept through the room as the creature in the hallway growled. It pushed on the door, rattling it in its frame. Jodie could hear its claws scraping against the metal as it pawed at the doorknob. David had locked the door when he entered the room, but Jodie knew the things would eventually find a way in. Crouching low, she crept over near David. “We have to find a way out of here, soon,” Jodie said.

David looked at her, as if she were crazy. “What do you mean? There is no way out of here. There’s one door,” he said, shifting to his knees. “And we’re looking at it.”

“Well, they’re using the vents. Is there any way we could use them, too?” Jodie asked. “I mean, if not the vents, there has to be a utility shaft or something, right?”

Sighing, David said, “I don’t know. I know there is one. Well, at least one, but I don’t have any idea where they are from here. The access points are marked with a symbol,” David said, drawing in the air with his finger. The symbol he drew looked something like a triangle with a circle inside.

Pointing to the door, Jodie said, “But we have a more immediate problem on our hands.” The sound of the thing in the hallway was louder now and Jodie knew it had company. She waited with David, listening to their grunting and scraping growing in intensity. For the moment, they appeared to just be milling around in the hall, making no real effort to get in the room.

“We should find something to block that door,” David said.

Jodie was about to agree when she heard scraping in the vent above them. Then she knew what the creatures in the hallway were waiting for. “They’re in the vents above us, David. It’ll only be a matter of time before they start falling out of that grate in the ceiling," she said, pointing up. "When they do, don’t let them get to the door.”

* * *

Chuck moved in the darkness, hearing the rustling of the group following behind him. Ahead, about where he thought he’d left Fester, he could hear something else. A crowd of the creatures were clustered in the hallway. He could see a dim outline of them near a door, pushing and bumping against each other. Chuck turned around. “Nick and Isaiah, you come up front. I’m going ahead to take care of those things. If any of them get through, you take them out, okay? Wait till they open their big ugly mouths and ram those pipes right in.”

“That’s disgusting,” Noah whispered.

“Yes, disgusting, but effective,” Chuck said. “Wish me luck.” Chuck slowly moved toward the creatures. In the dim light, one turned in his direction, but didn’t seem agitated by his presence. He realized, in the darkness, the things probably thought he was one of them.

He approached the closest one and moved near. He could tell it had been a woman at one time, her lab coat torn, with the nametag identifying her as Rita hanging limply to the side. Reaching up behind her, he positioned his hand near her backbone. As he thrust his hand through her skin, he clamped the other over her mouth. She jerked in his hands, a wild-eyed expression on her face, her body gradually growing limp and releasing a splash of fluid to the floor.

Chuck pulled his hand out of her body, slowly set her down in a heap, and turned back to the group. One of the other creatures stared at him, strings of saliva streaming from its mouth. Chuck avoided making direct eye contact, but he could see the thing moving closer, sniffing and grunting. It pushed its way through the crowd of five other creatures and came face to face with him, growling low, its spittle dripping onto Chuck’s feet. Chuck slowly raised his head and looked into the creature’s eyes.

At the moment he thought it finally registered that it was in trouble, Chuck quickly brought his hand up behind its head. He tried to clamp his other hand over its mouth, but the creature was too fast. It screamed in Chuck’s face, plastering him with saliva and bits of rotting flesh.

Chuck thrust his hand through the creature’s back, gripping its spine and yanking. He felt the entire vertebral column separating from its body, which folded in half and splashed to the ground. The remaining five creatures turned in his direction as he stood, holding onto the thin remnant of what used to be a human spine. “Okay, whose turn next?” Chuck asked.

The creatures grunted and spat, backing away from him slightly. Chuck reached out and punched the front of one's chest, wrenching his hand through its body, and twisting its backbone. Stuck on his arm, it convulsed as he wound up and swung it wide, crashing into the other four creatures, severing the head from one and slicing another in two. The last two lay in a tangled pile on the floor, scraping and clawing, trying to get away from him. He grabbed the first and piled it on top of the second, then stomped his foot down hard until it punctured a gaping hole all the way through their bodies. Suddenly, the hallway was silent.

* * *

“Did you see that?” David asked. “That thing is killing them. It can’t be. It just can’t be.”

“What can’t be?” Jodie said. “Did you think they’d all just get along, or what?”

David looked even paler in the dim light than he had before. He backed up a few more steps, away from the door. “Helen’s dream … the super soldier … it was real.”

Jodie turned to him to ask him what he meant just as the vent above his head flew open. The creature came crashing down onto him, flattening him to the floor. Jodie heard the sound of David’s bones crunching and snapping beneath its feet.

She fired her weapon at the thing, shooting into its open mouth as it screamed at her, blasting her backward. She lost her balance and fell to the floor. She heard the door behind her being wrenched from its frame and knew she would be dead in moments. There was no way to fight so many of them.

Continuing to fire into the thing’s mouth, she could feel the footsteps hitting the floor behind her, a metallic clanging echoing in between the bursts of the automatic weapon. She felt it bearing down on her and turned to swing the gun in its direction, but it leapt past her. It hit the creature standing on top of David with such force that the creature flew across the room and slammed into the wall, embedded a foot within the stone and mortar. The creature screamed, trying to free itself from the wall, but it fell silent as the metallic looking man shoved a pipe into its mouth and through the back of its head.

Finally, the room was quiet. Not knowing what to do, Jodie kept her weapon trained on the metal man, her hands shaking furiously. She looked it over, wondering what she was seeing. Its feet were covered in cloth bindings, caked with gore, and it wore a badge and had a holster strapped to its waist. A small, pink purse dangled from its neck.

“Don’t shoot him,” Fester called out. “That’s Officer Wending.”

Jodie looked at the thing in front of her, finding no resemblance to a human, much less Chuck Wending.

“It’s me, Jodie,” the metal man said. “Chuck. Chuck Wending. I won’t hurt you. I’ve been looking for you.”

Jodie couldn’t bring herself to lower the gun, even though the metallic man had saved her.

“He’s okay, Jodie. It really is Chuck,” Nick said.

Jodie slowly lowered the gun at the sound of Nick’s voice. The strong sense of relief she felt at the sight of Nick made her want to jump up and greet him, but she thought better of it, given the somber atmosphere in the room.

The metal man bent down to check on David. “Nick, I think David needs your help,” he said, backing up against the wall. Slowly, he slid to the floor. Jodie thought he looked utterly spent. She lowered her weapon, stood up and hugged Nick as he came into the room, followed by Christy, Noah, Hunter, her father and a young man she didn’t know. Isaiah stepped into the room last.

Jodie greeted her father with a hug. He looked a bit disheveled and had a nasty cut on his forehead. "Does it hurt?" she asked, wincing at the sight of the wound.

"Well, yes, it does, if you really want to know," her father said. "But I'm just happy you found us. I was so worried about you."

"You can't get rid of me yet, Dad," she said. Pulling away from him, she went to greet Christy, whispering to her. “Bonnie didn’t make it.”

Christy squeezed her arm. “I’d better go to Fester.”

Jodie looked over at the boy. Noah and Hunter were already by his side. The sight of the three together made her feel like Fester might be okay. “Before you go, where is Mei?”

Christy looked confused. “Didn’t David tell you where she is? He came and took her right after we got here. She was injured.”

"No, he didn't tell me anything about that,” Jodie asked, the momentary relief she’d felt upon seeing Nick gone altogether. “What do you mean, injured?"

"She fell and hit her head when Gypsum found us in the campground. She seemed pretty out of it. David ordered the guards to take her to medical and that was the last we saw of her."

Jodie wanted to scream. She’d hoped everyone would’ve stayed together. And, why hadn’t David told her about Mei? She turned her attention to Nick. “How is he?” Jodie asked, pointing at David.

Nick shook his head. “Dead," he said, quietly. "That thing broke his neck. I'll find something to cover him. Too bad Chuck wasn’t about a minute earlier.”

Jodie glanced in the metal man's direction. “You’re sure that’s really him?”

Nick nodded. “Yeah. He’s like some kind of hybrid or something.”

“Well, what’s wrong with him? He looks like his batteries ran out,” Jodie said, gesturing to the pile of metal slumped against the wall. "What's good is that those things don't seem to be coming around with him in the room. We'd better find a way to reboot him or something."

“He probably needs something to eat,” Fester said, wiping his face on his sleeve and walking across the room, where he pulled a flattened candy bar out of his shirt pocket. “Here, you take this, Officer Wending. I’m not very hungry anyway.”

Reaching out to grab the candy bar from Fester, Chuck’s hand slumped back down to his lap.

“I’ll help you,” Fester said. “You like it with the wrapper on, right?’

Chuck nodded.

Fester held the bar up to Chuck’s mouth and he took a bite, moaning a little.

“Thank you, Fester,” Chuck said. “I’m sorry it took me so long to get back here.”

“My mom died,” Fester said, tears splashing off of Chuck’s femur. Turning to Nick, he asked, "Is my dad dead, too?"

Nick nodded. "I'm afraid so, Fester. I'm sorry."

Chuck stopped chewing. “What? Oh, no. Oh, Fester, I’m so sorry,” he said, hugging the boy while he swallowed the remainder of the candy bar. Jodie thought this was possibly the oddest thing she’d ever seen. She rubbed her eyes and looked at them again. Adding to his strange appearance, this metal creature certainly was not the Chuck Wending she knew.

Fester turned to Jodie, his eyes red and face puffy. He pulled away from Chuck’s embrace slightly. “He needs more candy bars. We have to find a vending machine.”

“I know of one right up the hallway,” the young man standing in the doorway said.

Jodie looked at him.

“Oh, excuse me, ma’am. You’re Jodie, right?”

Jodie nodded. “Yes. And you are?”

“Billy. Pleased to meet you," he said, reaching out his hand to shake hers.

Jodie ignored the gesture. "Who are you, is what I meant," she said.

"I work for Gypsum. I was a guard until Officer Wending found me. He’s been talkin’ about you since we met,” Billy said, gesturing at Chuck. “He was real worried about you.”

“Well, Billy, you can call me Jodie, but I need you to hand that over," she said, pointing at the pipe he held in his hand.

"Well, no ma'am," Billy said. "Those things are loose in here. I'm not giving this up."

"Give it to her," Chuck's voice called in its mechanical hum from the other side of the room. "Do what she tells you or the leash goes back on."

Billy's face registered disappointment and he stared at Chuck.

"Billy, Gypsum guards chased and attacked these people," Chuck said. "You can't blame her for not trusting you."

Billy nodded and handed Jodie the pipe. "I'm sorry about what happened to you," he said. Then he turned and moved over to an empty corner of the room, sliding down to the floor, his head down.

Jodie thought he looked like a child pouting, yet, she wasn't about to put them in a situation in which they would have to defend themselves from another Gypsum guard. Recalling how RJ had gunned down Eric, she knew none of them could be trusted. She walked over and sat down beside Chuck, happy to be off her feet. She was well beyond the point of exhaustion and sitting felt wonderful. Although she had to rest for a few minutes, she needed to talk to Chuck first.

"You go over by Christy now, okay Fester?" Chuck said, patting the boy on the back.

Fester nodded and left them.

"So, you've been looking for me?" Jodie asked.

Chuck nodded. "I wanted to make sure you were okay," he said. "The last thing I remember, you were holding my hand and crying. I died, didn't I? I mean, well  . . . I don't know what I mean because I don't know what happened to me."

Jodie wondered if it would be such a good idea to tell Chuck that they'd thrown him out of the back of the train. "Yes, the Chuck Wending we knew died on the train. We had to leave you in the tunnel because we were out of time. My dad set off an explosion and it looks like some of the concoctions my mother created were somehow released and infected everyone who was in that part of the installation, including you."