It was not before long that Boris departed the relative comfort of his cell. Perhaps a mere half hour or so had passed, before his limp form was dragged along through the passageway, back to that room he had spent what had seemed a life-time, enduring the un-pleasantries of various torture methods. Evidently, he had been expected to recover quickly enough for the interrogator to start grilling him again. Perhaps, he being an ex-KGB agent, there was a bare trace of logic to that. But then, perhaps they weren't too bothered either way, and merely wanted to make his remaining time on earth as painful as possible. He was sure that if they kept it up at this rate he would be dead before he told them anything they wanted to hear. That thought startled a laugh out of him. Yes; he would do just that.
He thought it would be better to do so. He'd had to sell his friends dearly to prevent his secrets from becoming known. He had known they were all as good as dead, yet he felt personally responsible for his friends being marched away to their dooms like that. He imagined them being dead now anyway. No, all he could do now was to hold out for as long as possible. Sooner or later, he too would join them. And he intended to join them without having made their demises in vain. He only hoped in death he could be forgiven for signing their execution warrants.
He laughed a little again, though it didn't come easy through a battered chest cavity. Back when he was under command of the Soviets, any spiritual or religious concept, including life after death, would have been preposterous nonsense dreamt up by power hungry fanatics to maintain some order and a concept heavily evident throughout the course of human history. He'd always been taught that religion was a constraint, and had been practically forbidden to believe in any aspect it. Now, though, his past lessons were apparently overridden, and he obtained solace from the fact that death wasn't quite the end. It couldn't be. He felt it impossible for everything to just stop, just like that. It was too simple, and life was far from simple. Another reason for his new adoption in beliefs; he simply didn't want to think any other way, for that was horrific pessimism, and something he could do without for the moment.
As he sat, bound once more in that chair, his thoughts turned to Karen. A belief; a faith; it kept her close to him, living or dead. He was quite certain she was dead. He tried to remember her as happy, though under the circumstances that was unfeasible. In fact, he ended up torturing himself. As if the interrogator hasn't given me enough of that already, he thought bitterly. But it was sadly true to him. All he could picture in his mind's eye was Karen, and the rest of the group, dieing, and in great pain, cursing him, and cursing his name, as their screams faded and gave out to a dreadful and everlasting final silence.
"So, once again you sit in this chair", the very obvious statement emitted from the lips of a different man this time, though one just as nasty as the previous individual. No, come to think of it, this one wasn't so vulgar in his style. He actually resembled a business man under whatever light there was to be had, and one who appeared incapable of killing anything but a business deal. It would have come as a surprise to anyone, straight to the core, and that included a hardened veteran like Boris, to learn that Stan was the man behind this network of terror.
"Are you going to tell me what I'd like to hear this time?" the expected question returned, yet had no special flavour in it to make Boris utter the desired response. The actual reply was silence, and one certainly not desired by the new interrogator. And, it was as loathed now as it had been the first time round.
"What have you got to loose?" tension was highly evident in Stan's voice, as he tried to find the correct gate to the correct path that would result into breaking Boris.
"They're all dead now you realise", he continued, in a tone that indicated stress, "But you won't follow them that easy. You can stop all this. We'll just keep you alive until we get our answer, and that could be a very long time. If you give it to us now though, you'll join your comrades, and will no longer have to suffer."
That statement would have been very unreasonable to an average person. It meant death either way, and something the average person would certainly not want. The fact that sooner was in preference to later would have made it sound even more unreasonable. But, and Boris now realised, these people had been able to interpret his, as an individual's, psychology with frightening accuracy. They knew it pained him to live with his betrayal; sentencing his own comrades to their deaths all because he failed to say a few words.
It was almost beginning to get to him. No! He must stay focused, and keep his tongue till well after his death. If, of course, he was allowed to die.
"Okay", sighed Stan, not at all dissimilar to the way in which Roland uttered those particular words in the first encounter, "We'll just have to do this the old fashioned way."
He walked slowly and calmly to the trolley across the room, his footsteps echoing loudly and ominously. He returned with that noisy tray, pushing it across the floor towards the chair. To Boris, it glided as if possessed by some demented ghoul. Of course, it was littered with all those nasty things atop it, and Stan presented it to the captivated man. Most notably, there was a metallic box, with leads and clips attached to it. It resembled a car battery. Boris gulped. It was a car battery.
It was Stan who was laughing now, as he went about setting this particularly malicious device up to do its work. Boris knew exactly what that type of work would be, and, more grimly, where it would be applied.
"Was it the CIA or the KGB that used to do this?" was the ironic question from Stan, and probably rhetorical too, since it wouldn't make much difference what the answer was.
Touching the two crocodile clips together, a spark struck off, demonstrating to Boris exactly what type of pain he was in for. The application of a car battery to genitalia had been used in the past, particularly in Vietnam, yet Boris was far removed from reciting history lessons now.
"One more chance maybe?" mocked Stan, "Who do you work for?"
Despite a tremendous amount of fear, and despite every reasonable brain cell in his head screaming at him to tell his tormentor what he wanted, Boris kept his silence. The emotions accompanying defiance did little to please his soul, especially with what he had just gone and let himself in for, but it had a minimal soothing effect. Another violent spark quickly made him forget that though.
"Very well", said Stan, and he moved in, both clips parted like jaws and jaws much worse than those of any Raptor.
A ship could only be so big, yet this fact didn't hold obvious to any of them, who were exhausted by the time they reached their destination. It was definitely a hefty vessel, an old cargo freighter with an immense tonnage. It seemed bigger than one might be able to comprehend after that apparently long walk. Miles and miles it could have been, yet, thought Karen, that could not logically be so. In fact, none of the group would have been able to take a good guess at the correct size of the ship; they were far too exhausted to have been able to manage that. It mattered little to them anyway.
It wasn't a particularly cluttered deck, and she could see two helicopters, one recognised as the pocket gunship that had attacked earlier, resting at one end of the ship. The other looked to be less threatening, a civilian model, and one probably used to ferry people between the freighter and the main land; and probably an executive toy as well. Evidently the owners were trusting that the Pacific weather would stay pleasant. It would be expensive if damage came to the valuable machine, though such thoughts were very brief in Karen's mind. She was much more fixated on what she would be experiencing minutes from now. Understandable.
One of the most prominent features though, was a crane arm that projected nearby. It rose above their heads vertically, not too large, and branched out overhead, a heavy winch and hook hanging off the arm. Karen wondered momentarily why it would have been placed there in the first place. Perhaps after a few seconds reasoning, she might have figured its use as for lifting cargo from a hold. She didn't have that sort of time to ponder.
Aching as the rest of the group did, there was slight feelings of relief when they were brought to a halt. It was very slight however. Before them all, a number of grooves ran along the floor. At first, the presences was somewhat puzzling, but this soon dissipated when one of their guards approached a red button, attached to a console jutting a few feet above the deck, and activated it. The ground beneath them gave way, creating a wide chasm, into a dark pit. In Karen, and surely in the others as well, it inspired notions of Hell's mouth.
Sounds that were not of this earth emitted from that sinister hole in the deck. She knew it was an execution, and a barbaric one at that.
Standing proudly by such an abomination was Sarah and Roland; the red-haired girl practically clung to her lover and was blatantly not shy of revealing her caring side for such monsters. It was difficult to believe that such a sadistic creation could care about anything. Karen knew what to do the first chance she got; she would grab that girl and pull them both down to their deaths. It was just a matter of timing. Roland began to proclaim to them all. That time would obviously have to wait.
"So we come to an end of your little adventure", he beamed at them. They all stared back at him in disgust. Roland was far from being the traditional style executioner.
"You should be honoured to be going out this way", he tried explaining to them, though they were far removed from accepting such words, "It will be in aid of science and industry, as well as the finest weaponry the world has ever known."
Roland spoke of those creatures held in the darkness below them as if they were machines. It was puzzling to them. But disturbing more so. David sensed that they weren't going to be getting the full explanation though.
"Turn the lighting on, will you dear", Roland told his lover, who strolled across to the control panel a few moments later. All of a sudden the pitch black below them was illuminated with a dim artificial radiance, which lit up the interior only partially. Snarls sounded out again, rasping snarls with a very definite savageness. This time however, they were accompanied with menacing silhouettes, which stalked around only metres below, like sharks awaiting a condemned mutineer.
"Well", said Roland, "We haven't got all day I'm afraid." He gestured toward the orange evening sky.
"Farewell", he said, "Under different circumstances we may have been allies, rather than enemies."
"Put them in", he gestured to the guards.
The past few minutes could very well have qualified for the worst in his entire life. Those clips had yet to bite into his flesh with their stinging jaws, but every-time they approached they were withdrawn again by the sadistic man who controlled them. Psychological torture had its effects just as much as physical torture, maybe even more so, for you still felt you could do anything to escape what might happen to you if it was still merely a threat. If it had happened to you, then you had nothing to lose anymore, and would have to endure it the best you could. Boris didn't want to think about those clips being attached to him, yet his mind wouldn't allow it. It was almost as if it were a separate operating entity. He knew it would happen sooner or later though. Interrogators didn't like being cheated out of their form of pleasure.
"You know", spoke the vile Stan once again, and additional piece of dialogue for the grim small-talk he had kept up for those past minutes designed to mock Boris, "I don't know about you, but I'm having a great time." Boris could quite easily believe that. Stan was definitely a sick man.
"One thing I don't understand though", Stan obviously hadn't grown tired of talking yet, "Why do you fail to give yourself up now that your friends are dead? And that's everyone mind you, including that silly little bitch you were fond of so."
Behind his back, and out of sight, the muscle in Boris's arms tensed, almost to the point where it no longer felt like flesh, but like steel. They wished to throttle the man who was talking, to pulverise his trachea and crush his neck vertebrae. It was now that Boris realised something, a revelation that poured new energy into his systems. The binds restricting him weren't expertly bound at all. In fact, that anger that now surged through him offered a way of escaping and getting revenge on the organisation that had been responsible for so much. Slowly and surely, he ground his wrists against his bonds. In a matter of seconds he was gaining more and more slack. Stan didn't do himself any favours by progressing with his talking. And he especially didn't do himself any favours by continuing to spew about Karen. Yes, he was indeed a good reader of psychology. Too bad for him.
"I know you liked that girl particularly, any idiot could see that", flouted Stan, "That's why we had them all killed, with her going first if the orders were followed correctly. Perhaps if you had spoken up at the right time they may have been saved."
Rage boiled through Boris. His hands managed to clear the ropes now. They were free. Free to act out vengeance. It would come swiftly. Boris began to grin. He knew what he would do. He would show he could exert pain. It would be more satisfactory than carrying out his own execution on his own victim.
Stan obviously noticed it too, for he stopped momentarily. Those clips were still poised menacingly, but now they were static, and an expression worked its way onto Stan's face; one that wished he had attached those things a little earlier.
Swinging his right arm up and around, Boris grabbed for the nearest implement he could. And it just so happened that that implement was a rather sharp, and unclean, scalpel; a simple stabbing device. It would do.
Cleaving downward, the tool turned weapon penetrated Stan's hand, plunging through his palm and pinning him to the car battery with which he had planned on using for malicious torture. Yelping in pain, he struggled to release himself, as blood started to flow, and even worse, began to mingle with traces of battery acid. He knew that if he didn't escape soon, a second burning sensation would accompany the standard burn of pain; his nervous system screaming that it had been violated with lethal chemicals.
Boris used this window of time to escape. He managed to expertly scoop up another of the many unpleasant tools, this time a knife, and free himself properly. Cutting through the binds around his legs he would be able to dash off and exert revenge. But not before aiming a hard kick at his tormentor. This was more than enough force to free the now panic-stricken Stan, who stumbled backward, the violent liberation having ripped a nasty gash in his palm. Hitting the back of his skull against the wall, he was knocked out cold. For how long, Boris couldn't tell. He didn't care either. All he wanted to do was get out, and exert his revenge. No, not his revenge; his retribution.
It had demanded a lot of energy but Karen had just managed it. As the shove had erupted into the small of her back, pushing her out into the space over the opening, she had propelled herself across and into Sarah, before gravity won its inevitable victory, and they were both dragged down and into it.
It had all happened so fast that no-one had really had any time to act. Both of them hit the deck hard. It had been almost a twenty foot drop after all, and it was a miracle that none of them broke anything upon that brief and abrupt journey to the bottom of the pit. It wouldn't have suited Karen though. Had Sarah broken her neck she would have been denied the pleasure of killing her.
They scuffled like two cats fighting in the night, clawing and biting at each other. Sarah was very much alive from her fall, and it seemed that the trip over the edge had hardly had any impact on her at all. Engaged in ferocity of epic proportions, the two girls battled, completely oblivious to the two beasts that had recently strode into the immediate surrounding area.
The other three who had been unlucky enough to become the areas most recent visitors, however, couldn't help but notice the two savage creations that had come to investigate the fresh arrivals. David pointed in horror, to emphasise the presence they had. Such emphasis wasn't needed. Jim was already backing away, as was Jo. No matter how much she was attached to David, a simple motive of survival had already initiated her withdrawal away from those fearsome beasts, while the man stood there, almost frozen to the spot. It took a lot, but David eventually managed to slowly follow the moves made by his friends, backing away.
Both Metriacanthosaurs stood like sentinels, one standing on the left, the other the right, making any attempt to exit their perimeter somewhat impossible. The only way was to back off, and that wasn't going to get anyone anywhere any fast. With the bulkheads being the only thing to back away against, the only feasible journey appeared to be that of down the throats of the approaching monsters.
Jaws parted, the two paced forward menacingly. Karen and Sarah kept fighting.
Slowly he came to and light once again returned to his world. A nasty gash now etched into his palm and his head, Stan dizzily got to his feet. He felt no pain. Rage coursed through him instead, and no matter how unsteady he was, he could remember exactly what had happened and how it had occurred. Damn, was all he could think, I should have been prepared for anything.
Viciously he snatched at a holster fixed upon his thigh. There his fingers found the icy butt of a Colt 45, a weapon he had been conscious of carrying around all day, yet, had been reluctant to use in the interrogation. In actual fact, he had never imagined a need to use it so soon. Termination was its one sole purpose, despite the occasional whipping it might also have been handy for. As soon as Stan had heard all he wanted to hear, it would have delivered that final insurance that those said words would never be repeated by the same source to anyone. Now that particular "source" was loose aboard a ship containing something that that blasted source would inevitably try to destroy, much to Stan's disapproval. His pistol, which he had now cocked and held in a ready position, would be a slightly different type of insurance, yet insurance nevertheless. Setting off down the corridor to which Boris had started down in his bid for freedom, Stan ran. Every second counted. He knew exactly what Boris would be up to.
It was no trick question. Boris knew exactly what he was trying to do, and he knew his enemies knew the same. It only made him work faster though. He had always had to learn to work under pressure anyway, whether it came from a risk of verbal abuse or a bayonet in the back.
Having made his way to the stern of the ship, Boris had stumbled across the most useful room to plot his final retribution; the engine room. At first his mind had been swamped by ideas of how to put the mechanisms and materials located within the power-plant of the vessel to good use. Eventually his mind had reasoned for the old fashioned ways as opposed to anything fancy. Something fancy may take time and careful planning, his mind pondered the issue. A show of brute force would be sufficient. Fuel; he would use the fuel. At first he wondered whether that might be a bad idea. It would most likely cost him his life. Then he remembered that the others were already dead and that this was his retribution, and further more, that he didn't mean to get out of this alive. It was a good enough idea alright; more than good enough.
Making his way slowly but surely around the room and through all its tight spaces where the busy machinery had its place, Boris found the fuel lines; thick rubber vines hanging at about head height. He was quick to sever them. And it was so easy. Just a simple slash into the piping, followed by a hard yank to rip a gash, and fuel gushed forth at an extremely high pressure.
Repeating it on at least five other tubes, the volatile liquid, stinking of fumes, poured out of the openings and pooled on to the floor. At once those fumes, intoxicating and noxious, rose to meet his lungs and he felt as if he would make it no further. Soon he knew he would succumb to fits of coughs and choke and drown in the ever deepening lake that would soon fill much of the room he intended to trigger the destruction. He had to get out, and soon. The heat, emanating from the machinery, only made him hurry up. Of course he remembered that his trip was a one-way trip, yet he still hurried up; he could imagine better ways to go than succumbing to a noxious sea.
Clambering back down, he couldn't avoid at least some immersion in the stuff, which by now had began to cascade out of the room and into the adjacent corridor. When it went up it would cause astronomical damage.
Just as he made it to the door, something shrieked at him. At first he merely thought it as one of the numerous working noises from within the mighty engines, perhaps even a piston straining after years of service; it sounded out of place though. It just didn't sound right enough to be mechanical. It sounded…natural.
Turning his head, he just looked round in time to see the new shape spring from near the ceiling onto one of the enormous engine housings. No, he thought, not now, it just isn't possible. But it was. He knew it was too, he had merely wished it not to be. A Velociraptor, judging from its stance, very aggressive, hissed angrily at him, its clawed forearms held out in threatening display, and its tail rigidly stuck out behind it, as it prepared to leap once more. How it got there, Boris didn't know. He didn't particularly care either. He just wanted to get out of its way. One-way trip or not, he could still think of plenty of better ways to go out, which excluded choking in fumes and being disembowelled, ripped to shreds and being eaten alive.
The raptor leapt at that moment. Boris moved on forward, exiting the room. He actually stumbled and made an almighty splash, spattering a potentially explosive cocktail about the place. His mind didn't leave the prospect of detonation. That fuel had been leaking for at least half a minute. He imagined the heat from the machinery, as the volatile substance soaked back into the components of the power-plant, would ignite it in less than two minutes. He wanted to at least die relatively clear of the source of destruction; not at its heart like some idiot.
With such motives biting at his arse, he quickly picked himself up and sped down the corridor, pushing off on the leg he felt was strongest at that moment, and therefore the more efficient of the two limbs. A small factor like that could have a big change on the fate of a situation. The furious bipedal lizard gave immediate chase, clacking those dreadful razor sickles attached to each middle toe in a foreboding way before charging after the human.
Boris knew he couldn't outrun it. That didn't mean, however, that he would give the task in question a go. It was at this moment that a new and yet another danger made itself present. Stan came into view, a pistol poised in his hand. He yelled something, but in all the adrenal rush Boris was unable to make sense of it. He accepted it as a curse on his behalf in any case.
The heavy thud of a Colt's shot roared at him, and he heard the air rip a mere inch from his ear. He ran even faster. Perhaps a bullet would be relatively clean and quick, but he still wasn't far enough away. And anyway, he had grown too excited to give up. Stupid bastard missed, laughed the back of his mind. His heart pumped faster and faster, his senses heightened to a breaking point, giving him the strength he needed to escape, while at the same time keeping his body tensed for what seemed to be the inevitable.
The walk-way was a gauntlet. Each opening, a hatchway, kept flashing past him, yet he could never seem to recognise an end to the tunnel he made his rapid journey through. He could run forever, and never escape. Or that's how he felt anyway. It was like one of those nightmares; an inescapable situation. He really wanted to look behind him, to see how far away from death he really was. Had he done so, he would have seen something that might have slowed his tracks. He didn't, and so he kept moving quickly.
Quite a way behind now, the raptor and Stan stared at each other eye to eye. The human kept his pistol held high, and aimed at the carnivore's skull, while the creature held itself poised ready to deliver a final killing blow. It was a classic stand-off, only to be witnessed by the victor and the loser.
Threatening hisses and pops and purrs emitted from the raptor's throat, and it bared its razor-sharp jaws in intimidation. Both beings knew they had the ability to destroy the other. It was just a matter of when and who. Stan hadn't reckoned on such a circumstance coming up. Now he was dealing with his own work.
The raptor, confident it would be victorious, and having harnessed a paralysing fear in its prey, suddenly turned and streaked off down the corridor in Boris's direction. Evidently its current occupation was simply not worth the time or effort. Had Stan known the full story behind the creature's motives, he may not have felt so offended. Bewildered and elevated by this turn of events, he was immediately enveloped in a sudden burst of relief, as well as a slight feeling of regret that he apparently had lacked the worthiness of a true opponent. He fired triumphantly at the fleeing creature in any case. It was the last thing he ever did.
Boris was thrown, no, ejected, as he came upon the flight of stairs. Such force pushed him up through that opening and out into the air, almost like a missile departing its silo. Fortunately there wasn't enough velocity to cause him to clear the ship totally, and he landed in a heap on the deck, rather than in the ocean where he would surely have been forgotten and perished. For this reason he didn't complain about the blunt pain of impact.
Tremendous creaks roared out as an almighty explosion tore out the vital systems of the ship, pulverising what had once been the engine room, and leaving the vessel practically dead in the water. Its only propulsion now would be the currents. Fate would take it to its final destination, but a power-plant would definitely not.
Having been in a stand off with a Velociraptor, Stan had failed to notice that he had also been in an area thickly surrounded by fumes, and therefore an extremely dangerous environment. Upon firing the Colt as a mark of his "victory", if nothing else, he had signed his own death warrant. The spark caused as firing pin struck cordite had been sufficient to spark off the chain of events Boris had initiated. He had been engulfed in a curtain of scorching heat and flames immediately, incinerating him beyond recognition within seconds. It would have been quick and relatively painless; something undeserving for such a murderer.
Getting to his feet, Boris realised he had landed near to the bow of the ship. Ahead of him, a stooped figure gesticulated at the edge of an enormous pit. Boris recognised him instantly. Forgetting everything else, he sprinted toward that man.
As the flames cleared he could see that the roasted human had been blown down the corridor, and therefore out of the burning arena of death, and away from the newly created jagged structures, comprised of razor sharp edges and demented shapes.
That deceased body was nothing special, but it would be sustenance. Biting into the blackened and crispy flesh, the taste was different to how he would have recognised it. This meal was cooked after all. He would always prefer a raw, preferably living dish, but it would do; it would do.
After this, he thought, he would pursue the human he wanted so desperately to get at. That one he had seen moments earlier, to which he had originally given chase, had definitely been recognisable as an accomplice of the other; a friend no doubt. He had wondered if pursuit might lead him to his objective. But distraction had got in the way. It had resulted in a treat as well. Savouring the flesh, the Raptor continued to eat, undisturbed by the heated chaos around.
