Theta Six and their captive Feral enter the second-story of the buiding, only to make an unusual discovery.
Chapter 7: Behind Locked Doors
Data Log; Brune 13 A.E.
I have written and submitted my report to the Santa Fe chairman concerning the side effects of the Imulsion's mutative properties, suggesting that we should stop and decease these experiments on the subjects. They are becoming too dangerous and hazardous to keep, even within confinement.
I have left countless messages at central office, trying to get somebody to relay this message as quickly as possible, but I just keep getting the damn answering machine, so either I am being ignored, or they really need to find a new secretary. Therefore, as mentioned earlier in my report, I have sent a letter concerning these findings and in the meantime, will halt all research until further notice from chain of command.
If this does not get their attention, then I will discontinue with the project altogether, due to the unpredictability of the subjects and the fact that we've already had one death, and five seriously injured since we began these series of experiments. This material is too unpredictable to be used and we do not even know if we have the capability to control the side-effects.
I will continue to document what was left of my research in hopes to prevent further attempts of such a hazardous material to be converted into a chemical weapon. God help us if somebody else ever figures out how to harness this material in such a fashion and then recklessly discharges it.
Professor Levy Halloway
The metal door creaked slowly as Gaiman peered past the doorframe, scanning the low lit, immediate view of what appeared to be an cubicle, littered office floor, two stories above the main entrance. The doors to the level floor where heavily barricaded from the outside and Towslend didn't feel like going through a lot of trouble trying to remove the heavy debris of desks, chairs, and several industrial copy machines.
Not wanting to rely on the elevators, they barged down the door to the stairwell, which conveniently only lead up. Taking the flight of stairs, the men of Theta Six, along with a somewhat, hesitant Feral and her beaming canine whom she named Lowse, the five walked to the second floor while Lowse ran up without effort.
With Gaiman being the first to enter the office, Demitri was next to follow, keeping the left while Gaiman took right. The only lights illuminating the dark room were the computer monitors, flashing random screensavers and the emergency lights, flickering between electrical surges from the generators just outside the complex.
The building was for the most part self-sufficient, with seismic beams designed to withstand minor earthquakes and the aftershocks, emergency generators, and storm drains that ran along the roof and walls of the building. The emergency generators were the most irregular. The generators were large enough to feed electrical output into multiple buildings, much less one, but why one building insisted on having that kind of voltage eluded Towslend.
Waiting from the stairwell, while Gaiman and Demitri scanned the vicinity, Towslend held his ground, with their somewhat compliant Feral, Vera, whom hung behind, holding back Lowse, whom was still panting from running up the flight of stairs, with Josephine lurking from behind the two.
Vera stood antsy, occasionally glancing at the dog, whom was for the most part not under any alarm. Josephine watched the dog carefully, looking for anything that may startle him or arouse his intellect in anyway. With just a perk of an ear, or a sudden cease in the wagging of his tale could suggest that something was awry.
Josephine was familiar with the perks and behaviors of many animals, including domestic, taking in account to their keener senses from smell, hearing, to some other subliminal intuition. His animal of choice though were cats. He found cats to be the more intuitive than that of dogs, while dogs offered their ability to follow a scent, cats were more alert to the changes in the surroundings.
Carefully keeping their poise in the dark, Demitri returned to the stairwell entrance, illuminated only by the "exit" sign above.
"It's clear, Sarge."
"You sure, Private?"
"Even Father Gaiman can't find a soul, much less a living one. One thing's for sure, the place smells."
"Well it looks as if it had been closed up for awhile, the air must be stale. Still, it doesn't make sense. Somebody had to have set off that distress signal so somebody has to be here."
"Perhaps dere somewhere else in da building," Josephine suggested.
"Maybe behind that barricaded door downstairs," Demitri was the next to add, "…there's no other entrance to the floor level."
Towslend let out a sigh, wiping the sweat that had been accumulating on his forehead. Although the air conditioner in the building was operational, the stairwell did not have vents.
"Alright…see if you can get the lights on so we can sort this shit out."
Towslend then turned to Vera, whom was shying behind him.
"I don't suppose you wouldn't mind coming in?"
"Empty?"
"That we know of."
"Sure?" she gave him a burrowed look under her blonde locks of cropped hair that fell over her eyes..
"No…no I'm not sure, which is why we need to go in and find out. We need to figure out what happened to the people here. So you can either sit here in this fucking, hot stairwell, or tag along, trying to figure out where everyone went."
Feeling the weight of Towslend's gaze and stern voice, Vera nodded hesitantly and released the dog. Without second guessing, Lowse ran into the room, running along the sequences of cubicles that stretched out across the office space in the massive room. The lights flickered on as the room suddenly illuminated the fabric walls that made up the cubicle offices.
"We've got light," Gaiman yelled from the other side of the room. Computer consoles could be heard running, churning on their hard-drives while the monitors continued to run a sequence of screen savers, from oceanic scenes, to a churning vortex, bouncing along the screen.
Demitri followed Towslend in, with Vera carefully moving from behind, only to be coerced by Josephine's motioning after he shut the stairwell door behind them. Whipping her head around to find the Corporal loading up his Lancer, he flashed his usual, smug grin as his gold, colored eyes met with hers. Vera couldn't help but to feel timid under Josephine's wild gaze, his mannerism is not like the others, she thought. This one's different.
Carefully moving forward, she whistled for Lowse. He returned a bark in response, still meandering the massive office floor while the others took different directions around the field of cubicles..
"Shit," Demitri bellowed from a section of the room.
"What's the problem now, Private?" Towslend had to ask, keeping his gaze forward.
"There's a dead rodent up in here!"
"And…?"
"It reeks! How can one rat reek that much?"
"It's not just one rat, Private…" Gaiman could be heard coming from another section of cubicles, "…and rats are not the only thing dead up in here."
"Whatta you got Father? Is it one of our alleged survivors?"
"Nah…some animal…a raccoon, or a cat maybe. I can't tell, too much decomposition."
Josephine hopped up onto a desk as he looked over the jungle of cubicles that stretched out over the entire vicinity.
"Letta me have a'look," Josephine suggested, hopping up over the cubicle wall to leap onto the desk to climb another. With his sweat, matted strands of hair pulled back into a disheveled ponytail, Josephine could be seen hopping from one cubicle to the next, until he finds Gaiman, knelt down next to a cadaver.
"Be my guest, Marrow," said Gaiman.
Dodging over one more cubicle wall, Josephine leapt down onto Gaiman's position. Peering down on the floor of what was once something of an animal was nothing more than decomposed skin, clinging to bones. Hair littered the area while teeth could be seen, a bony tail, and four legs.
Looking carefully at the corpse, Josephine was able to make it out.
"Oi, it's a mammal, but not a cat, or racoon."
"Then what is it Josie?" Towslend barked from a few cubicles away.
"Small dog…or fox. Judgin' by dat hair and skull, I'd say small dog."
"So we have a dead rat, and a dead dog…" Towslend yelled out.
"…and a squirrel," Demitri yelled out from across the room, "…make that several rats, a squirrel…possum maybe…I've got a pet cemetery over here, Sergeant!"
Lowse could be heard panting as he sniffed around, with Vera carefully joining up with the others. Towslend was the next to join them, following the potent stench of decomp.
"Shit. We have an office full of dead animals! How in the hell did they get in here?" Towslend grumbled.
"Furthermore, how did they die?" Gaiman was the next to ask.
"It's gonna be hard ta tell…" Josephine responded, "…I don see any bone fractures…poisoned maybe?"
"Or maybe they dehydrated, or starved to death. I don't see any access to food or water," Gaiman added.
"I still want to know how they got trapped in here," said Towslend.
Vera knelt down next to the "dog" cadaver, gently picking at the remains to get a better look.
"See sometin' chere?" said Josephine as he knelt down beside her, curious as to what she was trying to find.
Vera didn't answer. She continued to pick at the corpse, her eyes fixed on the dead animal while scanning the skeletal remains.
"You know you can contribute at any time, Feral…" Towslend conveniently reminded Vera. She looked up at the men who where corralling around her.
"No tags?" she asked.
The men exchanged glances, not sure as to what Vera was suggesting.
"Tags? What tags?" Towslend asked.
"Animals have tags, yes? Like Lowse…" she explained the best she could.
"Your dog doesn't have a tag," said Gaiman.
"When find him, he had tag, but I take off," she said.
Josephine moved in front of Vera so he could turn the animal onto the other side.
"Aw c'mon Marrow; don't be messing with that stinky thing…" Demitri came close to gagging.
"Lookie here…" Josephine pointed as he pulled something from under the animal.
"Well shit," Towslend marveled as Josephine pulled up a plastic tag that apparently was attached to the animal before it died. Vera's eyes widened at the revelation.
"That tag," she pointed to it.
"So that very same tag was on your dog?" Towslend asked.
"Yes," she confirmed.
Carefully looking past the decomp that had melded onto the green and white tag, it read "specimen" with a sequence of numbers, some of which were not easily readable. Looking at it carefully, Gaiman could see a serial logo on the very bottom.
"So these animals belonged to somebody…an animal shelter maybe?" Demitri began to speculate.
"Or maybe they belonged to this very lab. That would explain why they're in here," Gaiman suggested.
"Well then how did Spark…er, I mean Lowse get out?" Demitri asked.
Towslend reached over to his com.
"Brussels, Lennie, you there, over…"
"Yep we're still here Sarge."
"Are you guys done yet? It's fucking hot out here, sir!" Brussels could be heard through the com piece.
"We haven't found any survivors as of yet. We're going to search another branch of the building, so sit tight!"
"You got it Sarge. Lennie out!"
Towslend looked up at the others before loading up his Gnasher shotgun into his pack.
"I take it we're moving again," Demitri groaned.
"We're going to open up that barricade downstairs."
"Are you saying that we're to open up something that someone went through a lot of trouble to make sure that whatever is behind that barricade, doesn't get out?" Gaiman reiterated, "…and I'm not talking just a few chairs and desks here; that barricade included a golf cart, a couple of multitasked copiers, and several steel, file cabinets."
"For all we know, the survivors could be behind that barricade, waiting to be rescued," Towslend explained.
"Then who barricaded them in?" Gaiman had to ask.
"Maybe the Grubs did," said Demitri.
"What would Locusts want wit some lab techies?" Josephine asked.
"Look, all we know is that somebody sent out a distress signal about three days ago. If there is a chance that somebody might be alive in there, then we need to get to them. Am I sounding unreasonable here?" Towslend redirected his gaze to Gaiman, "…Father?"
Gaiman could only take in Towslend words for face value. They really didn't know what was behind those walls, so there was the possibility that someone could be alive down there. If that was so much the case, they were obligated to find out. Gaiman could only let out a sigh and nod.
"No Sergeant. Our directive was to search for survivors…whom to which may be behind that barricade."
"This is nuts! What if they're already dead?" Demitri whined.
"Well I guess we'll find out in a wee bit now won't we," Towslend responded, "…we need to get to the bottom of this facility before something else stumbles upon it. Whatever happened here, I'm willing to bet the answer is in there."
Vera stood up as she called Lowse to her side.
"I no like this," she exclaimed as Lowse raced to her side.
"Pfft, what's to like, sweetheart?" Towslend responded, "…besides, maybe this mutt of yours could be useful to help find some water in one of the taps. If we don't find some water soon, our trip back out of here is going to be real short…and the same goes for you."
Vera redirected her gaze to the stairwell from which they came. She let out a slight shudder, feeling the creeping feeling all over again when she recalled hearing the hideous wailing from outside of the building, several days before.
"What bout'…wailing?" she asked with her eyes still fixed to the stairwell door.
"We've been in here for nearly an hour and we haven't heard anything but the AC running," Towslend rebutted.
"But, they wail…nighttime," said Vera.
"Who's wailing? I have yet to find something in here that's even remotely breathing, much less wailing," Towslend grumbled in irritation.
"Well, I suppose we can find out in two hours," Gaiman suggested.
"Sunset, already?" Demitri responded.
"According to my watch. It took us almost all afternoon just to get here," said Gaiman, "…and then of course bumping into our newfound company took up some time too."
"Well hell Father, I didn't expect us to be spending the night here, especially in a room with a bunch of cadavers just lying around all over the floor!" Towslend growled.
"But at least we'll be out of the heat," Demitri tried to look on the bright side of the situation, "…and if the bathroom sinks are working, then we can access the tap water there."
"And that's assuming that the tap water hasn't been sitting in the filters for too long. Tapwater can go stagnant if sitting idle for longer than six months," Gaiman added.
"That's assuming that this place has been vacant for six months, which can't be right," said Towslend.
"So what do we do, Sergeant?" asked Gaiman.
"Tell you what, Father you come with me downstairs. I'll call either Brussels or Lennie to come help us take down than barricade. Meanwhile, Demitri, Josie, go find some water. I don't care if we have to scoop it from the toilet, just get us some water that is safe to drink," and then Towslend turns his gaze to Vera, "…and take her with ya, since she's too chicken-shit to go downstairs!"
"Affirmative to dat," Josephine said with a grin before turning his gaze to Vera. Although Vera could only partially understand Towslend's lingo, she knew that she was going to have to be with Demitri and Josephine. She was not the least bit amused, but she needed the water as much as they did, if not more so, so she grudgingly gathered her gear and held Lowse by his collar.
"Lowse with me," she said.
"Yea, you can take the dog with ya. Demitri was starting to miss him anyway," said Towslend.
"Oh gee, thanks Sarge," Demitri grumbled.
"Look on da bright side, mon amie. If we run outta food, at least we have da dog," Josephine mused.
"For God's sake, Josie, we're not going to eat the dog," Demitri griped.
"Alright, enough you two. Get your asses moving before it gets dark. It's possible these generators may be set on a timer, so I don't know how long we have access to power. Vera go with them…and be sure not to leave that dog alone with Josie."
Vera nodded as she held onto Lowse' collar while keeping a wary eye on Josephine.
"Now let's head out and get to work before the boogie man comes out of the basement closet!"
As always, feedback is welcome.