Judy and Nick heard the explosions just as the entrance to Medical closed behind them.
"What the hell was that?" Judy asked.
"Whatever it was, it sounded too far away to do anything about it." Nick said. He swallowed and tugged at the edge of his body armor covering the base of his neck. After his debriefing with Bogo, he'd run back to his quarters and donned his full gear, headset and all. He'd even brought the M240 Incinerator unit, one of the few weapons that didn't have the recoil to knock him flat. After the poor performance the handgun had shown against the eyeless creature's carapace, he and Judy were holding out hope that fire would do a better job of driving off anymore creatures that may be sneaking around the air ducts.
Like the one that had ripped Fangmeyer apart.
Fangmeyer…
Nick had seen what was left of Fangmeyer after her killer had plunged into the abyss, and he could still taste the cornbread he'd brought up. She'd been one of few mammals who laughed at his jokes. One of the few who didn't look down on him for his race or his background. Nick didn't know if the monster that killed her was still alive, but if it was, he'd be damned if he it let hurt Judy, too.
Through the headset built into his camouflaged helmet, he asked, "Commander Bogo, this is Private Wilde. Where did those explosions come from? Over."
"Hell if I know, Wil-"
That was when the third explosion took out the hydropower plant and the lights went out. The wide hall turned dark. Bogo's voice disappeared into static.
"Sir? Sir!" Nick grabbed the little microphone protruding from his helmet, but after trying to contact two other superiors he realized it was no use. Whatever caused the explosions had severed military connections too.
Zootopian Prospect had officially gone dark.
Nick felt the fur on the back of his neck rise as primal instinct kicked in. Judy inched closer to his side, her big purple eyes staring at every pitch-black shadow that may be hiding an eyeless killer. He pictured a vaguely formed map of the area in his head. Taking two rights and a left would lead them to an elevator that would take them to the Rainforest Sector. With the power out, checking on Carthusia would have to wait.
Nick heard the sound of glass breaking somewhere on the other side of a wall. Feeling sick, he switched on the headlight on his helmet and pressed a switch on the flamethrower's barrel to activate the little blue flame.
"Let's find Ben, and then we can find out what happened."
They crept deeper into the sector, wondering if and when the backup generators would turn on.
Clawhauser wondered why the backup generators hadn't turned on yet. The colony had suffered a blackout once before, when a freak bolt of lightning disrupted hydroplant operations. The generators had kicked in within a second of the lights going out, activating the blood-red emergency lights. He'd take those over pitch darkness any day.
A tiny yellow light flashed in the darkness nearby with a metallic scratch. After a moment, it flashed again. It flickered before Rochewool finally managed to get the lighter working. He raised it up, illuminating his confused, worried face. "Seriously, what're you holding this place together with?"
"Mr. Rochewool, I highly recommend that you and your navigator go back to your rooms." Clawhauser said slowly and firmly. The only reason he was able to sound so cool and calm was that the shock from seeing one fifth of the colony getting bombed hadn't subsided yet.
"Hey, I asked you question. What's going on?"
A sickly-looking Cudson took his captain by the shoulder. "Let's just do what he says, sir. Ok?"
"Cudson, what're you-"
"I'll explain on the way."
They took off, taking the flame of the lighter with them.
Clawhauser quickly found the emergency supply box in the wall beside the now useless communication monitor before he was fully left in darkness. Opening it, he pulled out a glow stick and cracked it. It glowed orange like Rochewool's lighter.
There was a skitter behind him. He turned around and saw nothing but the window, showing nothing but darkness. Even the colony skyline seemed invisible. He turned to face the corridor that would lead him back to his boss. He shone the light on a nearby sign just to be sure he was going the right way. A sound like steam escaping from a pipe briefly reached his ears, then faded into the abyss.
"Ok. Gotta get back to Hornbull…" He whispered, wishing he had gone with Rochewool and Cudson.
He set off cautiously, holding the glow stick in front of him like a burning torch, using his other paw to shield his eyes.
The doors were designed to automatically open once the backup generators turned out, unless built-in sensors detected the presence of a fire. When Clawhauser reached the first door, it was shut, but it didn't make much to push it open and squeeze through. What he found on the other side stunned him.
A bloodbath. A great puddle of blood with the crushed remains of an elephant heart lying right in the middle. Clawhauser covered his mouth, ready to throw up, fearing what the rest of the body looked like, until he saw the toppled cart and the broken Organ Case System container. Damaged tubes leaked the blood and fluids that had been keeping the heart viable. Clawhauser swallowed down bile and took deep breaths. Two months ago, Hornbull had authorized the delivery of cloned organs for use in a medical trial of a prototype drug. Derived from Rhamnusia's indigenous plant life, the drug had the potential to treat failure to vital organs like kidneys, livers… or hearts.
Clawhauser moved the glow stick left to right, looking for the nurse who had caused the gruesome mess.
He was alone, or at least he thought he was.
He continued on, ready to report the incident to the first member of staff he came across. Medical ran a skeleton crew between midnight and dawn, but he was sure to find someone eventually.
He didn't.
Clawhauser climbed a short set of stairs and passed by a useless pair of elevators. He thought he heard the soft clanging sounds of someone ascending those same stairs behind him, turned around without stopping, and again saw nothing. He turned back to his path ahead.
He followed the signs, feeling his fear surge as he approached every corner, only to see nothing on the other side. A creaking sound up ahead turned out to be a fallen wheelchair, the upper wheel slowing to a stop when he reached it. Next to it lay a fallen coffee cup, the dark liquid forming a smeared trail leading to a nearby air duct. He thought he saw traces of dark red within the brown. There were definitely red pawprints around the square rim of the duct.
Clawhauser wasn't claustrophobic, but he could feel the fear setting in. The isolation, the darkness, the growing sense that he wasn't as alone as he thought he was mixed together into a painful panicky feeling in his chest.
He began passing a line of small doors. Hornbull's room was just ahead. He'd make sure the rhino was okay and then get the heck out of here and back to Fort Meadowland. He'd take Hornbull with him if he could. He was not leaving his very sick boss in this horrible place.
The door was open when he reached it. Clawhauser's heart sank. He ran inside just to be sure, but the bed was indeed empty. The clothes left on the chair nearby where gone. The IV needle lay on the pillow, stained with blood.
The pager. He may still be able to use his pager. It was designed to send and receive messages via more than just one mammal. Hornbull rarely used his pager, but it had been left in the pocket of the clothes the rhino had taken from the chair. He brought up Hornbull's number and sent a brief message;
WHERE ARE YOU?
He heard a beep from the chair and stepped closer to it. The chair arm had concealed it before, but now he saw his boss's pager.
"Aw, come on, boss." He breathed.
He heard a growl, and heavy footsteps retreating from the doorway behind him. Clawhauser poked his head out and searched the immediate area with his glowstick. Yet again, nothing.
This time, his sixth sense told him that it was truly nothing. For the first time since the blackout he felt truly alone. Whatever had been stalking him had moved on.
Clawhauser pocketed his own pager and left. There was nothing left to do but leave the building.
The quickest way out was through the cafeteria, then the emergency exit beyond. Clawhauser continued on through the empty hallways, down a set of stairs.
At the bottom of the stairs, he heard gunfire. It sounded oddly airy, like the bullets were being shot out of air cannons. They stopped after a few seconds. Clawhauser stood rooted to the spot. When he heard no footsteps coming his way, he fearfully proceeded onward.
He stopped again when he saw the bone-coloured, eight-legged corpse on the ground at his feet, surrounded by blots of burned, melted metal. The long tail protruding from the body was disintegrating at the tip, the cause appearing to be some sort of glowing blue liquid that had been poured onto it. Clawhauser knelt down and illuminated the rapidly decomposing creature. The smell was an unpleasant combination of bleach and decay. He managed to examine its fleshy pink underbelly for just a second before the entire body collapsed into a tiny puddle of liquid and a two-pronged spear tip. Clawhauser had enough biohazard training to know not to touch the spear tip. When he stood up, he saw a second spear tip embedded in the sign pointing to the cafeteria ahead. He figured this one was safe enough to touch, and gingerly pulled it out. Both prongs had jagged barbs, and a light stroke of his finger suggested it was as sharp as obsidian.
Mansa would definitely want to see this. Clawhauser pocketed the spear tip and got moving again, trying not to think about the creature, or the fact that it was nowhere near big enough to drag anyone into vents.
The hallway eventually opened up into the wide room of the cafeteria, used by patients and staff alike. His pale orange sphere of light revealed a body, soaked in blood, a ragged bloody canyon in his back where the spine had been ripped out.
Clawhauser's breath caught in his throat. He found three more up ahead, each one suffering some form of mutilation. Between them lay a line of rhino-sized footprints. At the end of them was a rhino coughing and wheezing, his weight supported by a trash can.
"Hornbull!" The sight of his boss was enough for Clawhauser to put his terror and nausua to the side and run to him.
Hornbull stared at Clawhauser with bloodshot eyes. With one hand clutching his chest, he backed away. "Stay away from me!"
A coughing fit halted his retreat. He fell to his knees. Clawhauser caught up to his and grabbed the rhino's upper arm. "Come, we've got to you out of here."
"It's too late… I get it now… Why that thing came after me…"
"What?"
Hornbull expelled a mix of vomit and blood. Clawhauser flinched at the sight but didn't leave the rhino's side.
"Come with me. The Fort has medics, they may be able to do something…
"The fuck they can… did you see the spider…"
"The one with the tail, yeah. It's dead."
"I remember... I know what it did to me… I'm fucked…"
Hornbull sobbed, tears dripping onto the floor.
Clawhauser felt a different kind of fear. "What did it do?"
"Kill me, Benji…" Hornbull breathed. "You either kill me… or you run… it'll be comin' soon."
Clawhauser glanced at the darkness and the bodies around them.
Hornbull gasped, wrenching his arm out of Clawhauser's paw as he suddenly arched his back at an angle that should be impossible for his bulk. Then the convulsions started.
Clawhauser threw an arm over his chest to ease him onto the floor, praying to God there was someone who could still answer his pager. He could literally feel the rhino's heart pounding against his ribcage. Hornbull needed a doctor, now!
"Hornbull, hold on! I'll call someone, a doc-tah!"
Something within Hornbull's chest, something absolutely not a heart, punched at the ribcage with shocking force. Clawhauser felt Hornbull's thick hide slam into his inner forearm, felt a literal biting pain and threw himself away from the rhino with a shriek.
He stared at the cookie-cutter chunk of flesh and fur that had been taken from him, exposing the muscle underneath. He forced himself to look away from the wound and gaped at the growing crimson stain spreading across Hornbull's work shirt. Clawhauser could now see the round shape of the thing inside thrusting outward, over and over and over… he thought he saw little teeth in the hole in the middle of the bloodstain…
"Kill me, just FUCKING KILL M-"
Hornbull explosively vomited blood, and then the phallic eyeless head of the parasite broke free of his hide with a screech. Clawhauser threw his arms over his face as blood and matter drenched him, and heard Hornbull fall to the floor with a wet thud. When he lowered his arms, the parasite was working the rest of its body out the hole it had chewed through Hornbull. It was black and grey and had little arms and legs curled against its body, yet it preferred the use of its long barbed tail. It slithered out of its host like a snake, hitting the metal floor with a weighted smack. Hornbull gargled on his own blood, his arms unconsciously twitching and covering more of the floor with red.
Somehow, despite having no eyes, the parasite locked gazes with the frozen, blood-drenched cheetah who had witnessed its birth. It tensed, posing like a cobra. Clawhauser made no move to fight or flee.
Then it hissed and slithered toward the nearest vent, tearing through the grate like butter and vanishing into the dark like a wraith.
Hornbull made a sound that resembled the word "Ice," and then relaxed and lay still.
Clawhauser slowly raised a paw toward his boss. He paused. He gazed at the bite wound in his arm. Then he lowered it. A tear trickled down his face, carving a path through the blood. Then another. He stood up on weak legs with the glow stick in hand.
"Fucking hell." He wheezed.
There was nothing left here. He had to go home and get a shower. Mansa needed to know what had happened. He needed to know about the spider, and the parasite, and the spear tip in Clawhauser's pocket. Then Clawhauser had to go back to his office and fill out some forms, because he wasn't Interim Administrator anymore.
Clawhauser had a vague inkling as to the direction of the emergency exit. He turned slowly toward that direction.
He felt the hard claws around his throat before he saw the face of the full-grown parasite inches from his own.
Sharp tusks flared out from a set of gleaming, silver, bloody teeth. The big hand tightened, cutting off his air, snapping Clawhauser out of his shock as yet another form of terror set in. He dropped the glow stick and tugged and pried at the hand, his claws unable to penetrate its black skin. The Serpent held him in an iron grip as it looked to Hornbull's corpse, and the gaping empty chest cavity the infant parasite had left behind. It saw the blood trail leading to the air duct. Then it turned its long head back to glare at its prey. Clawhauser thought it was glaring, but he wasn't sure.
It slammed him to the floor, twisting its wrist on the way down so Clawhauser landed face first. The glow stick he'd dropped lay by the first spineless corpse he'd found. The Serpent held him down, with one muscled leg on either side of him, crouched so low he could feel its tail draped over his legs as the big, sharp claws of its other hand stroked the length of his back.
Midway down, it moved its hand away from his spine and slipped it under his shirt.
It was taking its time with Clawhauser, he realized with chill. How long had it taken to kill those mammals in the cafeteria? How long would he have to wait for the horror to end?
There was nothing he could do but endure the skin-crawling sensation of the hand caressing his smooth, thin, furry form. The act felt curious in nature, the creature wanting to see what was beneath the 'outer skin' that was his clothes. He couldn't even begin to describe what it smelled like.
Then the hand slipped out from beneath his shirt, and he felt the claws begin to dig into the flesh above his pelvis.
Clawhauser heard a skittering sound, like a spider with claws for legs. The claws stopped, the Serpent having heard it too. It seemed to get an idea that was better than just throttling and/or de-spining him, for it grabbed Clawhauser's arm and turned him on his back. Clawhauser stared up at his reflection in the forehead of his attacker. He thought he saw the eye sockets of a skull within the shining carapace.
Then he felt something clambering up his stomach with way too many legs. With growing horror, he lifted his head to see another tailed spider crawling up his torso and towards his face. He kicked his legs and struggled, but the Serpent held him down by both arms.
It happened with a blur. Everything went black as the impregnator quickly closed the remaining distance and wrapped itself around his head. The Serpent released him immediately after, and Clawhauser realized why the moment his freed paws came up to pull the thing off. It was because he couldn't. The impregnator's grip was too strong. His muffled screams were cut off by the tail wrapping around his neck like a hangman's noose.
He couldn't see. He couldn't breathe. Something was pressing against his muzzle, some kind of wet tongue trying to force its way past his lips. He clenched his teeth shut in response. He envisioned Hornbull's dying moments. His dying screams. His unfulfilled wish for a quick death.
His entire body thrashed. He could no longer feel the Serpent's presence over him. It had left him for dead.
His hip smacked against the floor, and something small and sharp cut into his skin.
The spear tip.
His limbs were beginning to feel like lead as he reached down for his pocket. He missed the pocket opening at first but found it on his second try. He grabbed the tip by the barbed base and pulled it out.
He could feel himself losing consciousness. Even his clenched jaw failed him, giving way for the impregnator's 'tongue' to break through into his mouth. He choked as it passed beneath his uvula and began working its way down his throat toward his chest area. His other paw gripped the hard, ribbed part of its back that must be its spine. The paw holding the spear tip trembled as he raised it.
I love you, Mansa, he thought, just in case this didn't work.
With all the strength he had left, he jammed both prongs of the spear tip straight down into the impregnator's back.
It convulsed, its legs jerking and losing their grip, then relaxed. The tail around his neck went slack. Choking on the thing's proboscis, Clawhauser ripped the thing off, and saw the long white tube coming out of its underbelly, stretching out from his mouth. It was an utterly revolting thing to see, let alone experience. He grabbed the tube with both paws and yanked it out in one go. He coughed and sucked in the air cooled by Weyand Ewetani's conditioning system, too weak to remove the tail from his neck.
Only then did he notice that the backup generators had finally, finallyturned on, bathing the cafeteria in red.
His limbs weren't getting their strength back. The impregnator had done something else to him, a method of subduing its prey other than strangling him unconscious. He lay on the floor, the dead creature by his side, growing drowsier by the second.
A tall, bulky figure materialized above him out of thin air, a masked being with tentacles for dreadlocks. It knelt beside him, staring at his chest for a moment before picking up the impregnator. The tail came away from Clawhauser's neck. It turned the corpse over in its clawed hands, then paused as it saw the spear tip still embedded in its spine.
The Hunter tilted its head, then looked at Clawhauser. Even with the feature metal mask, the cheetah could see it connecting the dots. It chittered at him, a deep sound befitting its stature, then dropped the corpse on the floor and pulled out a vial of blue liquid. With a single drop the impregnator was dissolved, just like the last one.
The Hunter turned its attention to Hornbull. It probed the rhino's open chest with its fingertips, then just like the Serpent earlier, followed the blood trail with its eyes to the air duct.
It punched the floor with a snarl, leaving a crater. Then it held the vial over Hornbull's bloody body.
"No…" Clawhauser breathed. He couldn't move at all. All he could do was watch.
The Hunter turned away from Hornbull, striding out the cafeteria before the rhino became little more than a melting lump.
Clawhauser woke up to the sensation of a tiny paw shaking his shoulder. He opened his eyes to find Hopps hovering over him, colored completely red in the vivid emergency lights. She was saying his name, asking him if he was okay. Nearby, Wilde was guarding the door with a flamethrower unit, trying not to look at the bodies.
Clawhauser turned his head slightly to find Hornbull. The rhino was little more than another puddle of blood.
"No…" He said again.
"Clawhauser, where's Hornbull?" Hopps asked. "Where is the Administrator?"
Clawhauser blacked out again before he could tell her.