Cruel World(148)

Some of his father’s last words floated back to him. Sorry, I’m so sorry. My fault.

Now he understood what he’d meant.

“Goddamn you. Goddamn you both,” Quinn said.

“I’m sure that He has,” Gregory said, looking up. His eyes darted around and his jaw clenched, the muscles of his face bulging beneath the pallor. “He’ll be awake soon, and they’ll return before long. You don’t have much time.”

“Who will? Who will be awake soon?” Alice asked.

“Rodney. He sleeps deeply part of the day, but he feeds the rest of it. I was trying to save him when he began to change and I…I couldn’t escape.” Gregory lowered his voice further. “I’ve tried not to eat what they bring, but he hurts me. He’s tied into my nervous system, and oh God, he hurts me.” Gregory gestured weakly around them, and a prickling sensation crawled up Quinn’s back like a many-legged insect. He let his eyes slide over the growth of bone flowing everywhere in the building, its reaching points crawling down the hallways, seeking ever outward.

Quinn began backing away.

“Please, you have to kill me, please,” Gregory begged.

“Who is he controlling?” Quinn asked.

“Them. All of the abominations that can smell the pheromones he produces. They communicate with the others through scent and tell them his wishes.”

“What does he tell them?” Quinn said, fear running him through like a lance.

“Come to me, come to me, come to me,” Gregory whispered. “They hunt and bring him food, and I have to eat it—you don’t know what I’ve had to eat.” The doctor began to sob and he suddenly convulsed as if hooked to ten thousand volts. His head snapped back, eyes rolling up in his skull while his mouth gaped open and a creaking moan slipped from him. It was a sound of distilled pain, the cry of the damned.

“Quinn, we have to go,” Alice said, grabbing his arm. She was looking down now, down at the tracks on the floor that led to the center of the room. So many tracks.

“Kiiiilll mmmeeeeeeee,” Gregory hissed, eyes jittering in their sockets, his arm outstretched and shaking.

Quinn brought up the handgun and aimed at the man’s forehead. The sights wavered as the doctor’s jaw clenched so tight they could hear his teeth cracking in his mouth. Quinn squeezed the trigger but then released it and moved across the operating room to the far wall.

“What are you doing?” Alice said.

“I have to be sure,” he said, opening the last refrigerated cell on the counter. Inside were four vials of clear liquid. He grabbed the first and pulled it out, ripping the drawer in front of him open. Inside were all manner of sterile instruments in plastic wrappers. He rifled through them, a clock ticking down in his mind. Gregory screamed behind him. The syringes were at the very back of the drawer, and he drew one out, tearing the package with his teeth. He fumbled the plastic cap off the needle and plunged it into the rubber stopper at the end of the vial. He retracted the plunger, filling the syringe, and threw the vial across the room.

Somewhere far away, a stilt roared.

Quinn jammed the needle into Gregory’s neck and depressed the liquid.

His eyes bulged, and all of his wind rushed out, sliding from between his broken teeth. A small amount of blood dribbled down his chin, and he seized again, muscles becoming bands of iron before slackening.

“Quinn!” Alice yelled as she pulled Ty out of the room and headed toward the door they’d entered through. He began to follow and looked back when he reached the divider between the operating room and the lab.

Gregory was slumping forward, further than he should’ve been able, and Quinn saw that the bone around him was softening where it met his clothes. The doctor raised his head, eyes clear now locking onto Quinn’s, the pain in them washed away.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

Quinn turned and ran.

Alice, Ty, and Denver were waiting at the locked door. He drew out Roman’s card and was about to slide it through the reader when another croak echoed into the lab. Quinn turned, squinting down the passage that led out the back of the room. There was a small amount of light filtering in at the rear wall.

“Wait a second,” he said and sprinted through the lab and down the hall. It turned a corner at a door marked ‘roof access’ before opening up to the field outside the end of the building. There had been a fire exit door there once, but it had been torn away and lay scratched and bent on the grass. The rain continued to fall in an unending drizzle.