Authors: Robert Ryan
The Creature used the split-second hesitation to charge. The Monster’s ferocious backhand swipe sent it flying backward. The beast staggered and fell to the ground in a heap. A sound of alien savagery rumbled through its hollow gasps for air as it struggled to its feet.
The Monster countered with his familiar growl. “RRRRRRRRRRRR!”
The Creature came at him again. They clamped onto each other in a fierce wrestling match that was a blur of throws, choke holds, body slams, and wild windmilling arms. In the confusion Quinn grabbed the stake, Johnny the flamethrower. She went straight for the Monster, but the approaching flame only enraged him more.
With a defiant roar he hurled the Creature aside and walked into the flame. Two steps later he ripped the flamethrower from Johnny’s hands and threw her across the cell. She slammed against the bars and collapsed onto the stone floor, where she lay utterly still. The Monster tossed the flamethrower aside and frantically brushed sparks from his shirt. The Creature struggled to its feet.
Quinn hesitated. He needed to check on Johnny, but with the monsters distracted, he might have an opening to end this.
He sprinted to the flamethrower.
The Monster reached into his pocket for the pistol. The Creature charged. The Monster rushed his shot, and the bullet hit the Creature in the shoulder. It staggered backward.
Quinn adjusted the flame to its maximum five-foot range. The sound of the gas-powered rush made the Monster whip his ahead around. He pointed the pistol at Quinn, unaware that the Creature had recovered and was coming up behind him, arms outstretched, reaching for his neck.
“Drop it,” the Monster said.
“Fuck you,” Quinn said.
The clawed hands clamped onto the Monster’s neck.
Quinn seized his opening and directed the flame at the hand holding the pistol. The Monster dropped it and flew into a rage, twisting and contorting his body to avoid the flamethrower while pulling at the hands that were strangling him.
The tip of the flame reached the Monster’s chest. Instead of subduing him, it inflamed his instinct for self-preservation into white-hot fury. The strength and rage of all the monsters inside him combined to rip the webbed hands off his neck. Fiercely gripping the Creature by the arm, Markov swung it around like a whip, smashing it into Quinn. The flamethrower went flying as he and the Creature tumbled across the floor.
While they were both dazed, the Monster retrieved the pistol and flamethrower. Seeing that neither Quinn nor Johnny posed an immediate threat, he went to the Creature. On the way he saw a canister of spray on the floor. He stuffed it and the pistol in his waistband, then looked down at the Creature with contempt.
It lay on its back, large fish-lipped mouth wide open and chest heaving as it gasped for breath. The Monster knelt and shot a stream of spray into the mouth. The hollow gasps became desperate choking coughs. The scaly chest heaved as though it might explode.
The red eyes dimmed; the choking gasps became weaker; the scaly eyelids began to come down. Just before they closed completely, fiery sparks appeared in the eyes—futile parting bursts of hate. They penetrated the soulless shell of the Monster and flared briefly in the fog-shrouded moor that was Markov’s brain. In that sickly flash of reason, Markov couldn’t tell if the hatred came from the Creature, bitter at being aborted just as its soul had begun to form, or from the bits of his own soul that had seeped into it—self-loathing at the awareness that he was killing a part of himself. When the Creature’s eyes finally closed, the Monster became Markov again. His clothes hung on him in tatters.
He cast a quick glance at Johnny. She showed no signs of life.
Quinn had gotten to his feet. He couldn’t tend to Johnny until he dealt with Markov. He made a move for the stake. Markov stopped him with the pistol in one hand and the flamethrower in the other. “Move.”
He backed Quinn to the rear wall until they stood on either side of Max’s suspended head. Markov set the flamethrower down and ripped one of the fetters from a corner of Max’s mouth. The head fell a few feet until the chain of the other fetter became taut. The head jiggled and bobbed, finally coming to rest with its sightless eyes looking at the floor. While Markov stared remorselessly at the remains of his son, Quinn slapped the pistol from his hand and bolted.
Markov touched a button on the remote attached to his hip and the cell door slammed shut. He calmly retrieved the pistol.
“You cannot escape,” he said as he walked toward Quinn, “and I have no more time for your misguided heroics.
Move
.”
Again he herded Quinn to the back wall. He kept the pistol trained on him while he pulled a key from his pocket. He unlocked the fetter hanging from the wall, snapped it shut around Quinn’s wrist, and went to check on Johnny.
He lifted an eyelid, felt her pulse. “She’s alive.”
He carried her to the back wall and laid her down. He ripped Max’s head from the other shackle and unceremoniously dropped it to the floor. It landed with a squishy sound on the soft ragged tissue of the neck. Max’s milky dead eyes gave baleful witness to the further desecration of his rude grave.
Johnny began to stir. Markov scooped her up and chained her to the wall. She sagged when he let her go, but the pressure on her wrist quickly brought her to attention.
Markov picked up the impalement stake and faced his prisoners. “I and my army cannot be defeated. Now, If you’ll excuse me, I have a movie to finish. For you two, this is a wrap.”
He took a deliberate step to Quinn and raised an eyebrow to give him the Lugosi stare. “When we first met, you said you didn’t believe in monsters. So I shall leave you with Van Helsing’s famous line from his closing curtain speech:
‘Remember:
There are such things
.’”
Markov slammed the cell door shut and quickly disappeared into the darkness.
Johnny held up her shackled wrist and whispered to Quinn, “I have spare keys for this and the cell door in the bag, but we can’t get to them.”
“Not necessarily.” Quinn reached into his hidden zipper pocket and brought out the multitool. He flipped the six-inch blade up from its slot and showed it to her. “Hacksaw. Very sharp.”
He inserted the blade into the shackle’s loop and began sawing with machinelike speed. A few minutes later he was free.
“The keys are in the small compartment on the side of the bag,” Johnny said.
He got the keys and removed the shackle from his wrist, then freed Johnny. “We’ve got to figure out a new plan,” he said. “We can’t go hand-to-hand with him. He’s got the pistol. And the stake.”
“And ‘reinforcements,’” Johnny added. Her brow furrowed as she tried to think of a solution. She held up a finger. “Wait a minute.”
She pulled her master control unit from the bag, scrolling until she found what she wanted. Filling the screen was the corridor that ran in front of her apartment. She held it out for Quinn to see.
“What?” he said.
“The spear gun. It’s still there where I left it. We can get that and charge into the studio through the door inside my apartment. I can harpoon him before he knows what hit him.”
“If you don’t miss, that should do it.”
“I’ve had plenty of practice with all these things. I won’t miss. Once I take care of Markov, I’ll get the pistol off him.”
“We’ll still have the others to deal with,” Quinn said.
“Without their ruler they’ll be confused, but it won’t stop them from going after what they need to live—fresh blood. Which means us.”
“There’s a box of extra bullets in the bag,” Quinn said. “I’ll take the flamethrower and the halberd.”
“Even if the bullets don’t kill them, it’s got to slow them down.”
“While you’re pumping them with lead I’ll be slashing and burning.”
“Then we start the hellfire,” Johnny said. “The End. The. Fucking. End. Roll credits.”
Quinn went to get the halberd and flamethrower. Johnny met him just inside the gate with the canvas bag. She set it down and started pulling out wolfbane and garlic. “Put this on you wherever you can. Hopefully it will keep his reinforcements off us.”
They stuffed the banes into pockets, waistbands, socks. “We’re going to need some light,” Johnny said, “and you’re going to need both hands free.” She reached into a separate compartment and pulled out a light with an elastic headband attached. “I always keep these handy. I use them for my dives in the lagoon, but also whenever I’m outside at night.”
Quinn snugged the headlamp into position, then unlocked and opened the gate. They took a moment to assess the conditions before entering the battlefield.
About fifty yards from where they stood, a dim glow from the light inside the Garden spilled into the main chamber. Between where they stood and that glow, all was darkness.
“This is the moment of truth, Johnny.”
She made one small grim nod. “Be ready for absolutely anything. We’ve got to get through the Garden and up the stairs to my apartment.”
Quinn rested the halberd on a shoulder and picked up the bag. “I’ve got this,” he said. “You take the flamethrower.”
He aimed the beam of the headlamp into the eerily silent gloom. They followed the ten-foot shaft of light into darkness where every step might bring them face to face with death—or something worse. About halfway to the Garden, Quinn stopped suddenly and held out an arm to restrain Johnny. He pointed to something straight ahead. At the farthest reach of his light, two red dots were slowly coming toward them. Their eerie reflective glow left no doubt what they were.
Nocturnal eyes reflecting the light.
Quinn moved the light around to see if there were others.
Two more eyes glowed a short distance behind the first two. Escapees from the Garden were coming toward them.
“Start the flamethrower,” Quinn said. “You take the second one.”
He held out the halberd to use the pike that rose above the battle-ax like a spear. Johnny adjusted the flame to its maximum five-foot range.
The undead sensed danger and stopped just beyond the range of the weapons. The light showed demonic blood hunger melting into confusion.
“Now,” Quinn said.
He charged and thrust the pike into something no longer human. Blood spurted from its chest as it fell to the ground. The other one turned to run but had only taken a step before Johnny set it on fire. Agonized moans filled the chamber as it collapsed to the floor in a flaming heap.
“We have to keep moving,” Quinn said. “Let’s close the gate so nothing else can get out. Then we can see what we’re up against in the Garden.”
They looked to make sure these two were dead.
All that remained of the one Johnny had torched was a smoldering charred carcass. Quinn shone the light on the other.
Its eyes were open. They shifted toward the light.
“
God damn you!
” Quinn plunged the pike into the same hole in the chest, furiously agitating it around as though trying to scrape away any last vestiges of life. He yanked it out and raised it again, ready to do the same thing to the eyes.
Johnny grabbed his wrist. “
Wait
. Look.” The eyes slowly closed. “It’s done. We need to get going.”
Almost hyperventilating, Quinn aimed the light straight ahead and they went on.
A moment later they shut the gate to the Garden from the inside. “It’s time to round up the herd,” Johnny said.
Quinn held her gaze for a few seconds, continuing to marvel at her transformation from cringing servant to fierce warrior.
They crossed to the final short set of stairs that would take them down to the Garden. Light from the gas torches that dotted the walls of the vast subterranean chamber was enough for Quinn to turn off his headlamp. He handed it to Johnny and she put it back in the bag.
The horror unfolding in Markov’s crypt for the undead kept them momentarily riveted to their spot. Strobelike flashes from the lightning storm outside added sinister animation to the nightmare scene in the pit below.
Some of the undead had risen and were moving about the Garden. One was bent over a coffin. From this distance it was impossible to tell if it was giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to one of its undead brethren, or draining the last drops of blood from a weaker inmate. A few that had not gotten strong enough to walk wriggled along the floor, like Poe’s conqueror worms, searching for whatever sustenance they could find in the scraps of dead flesh that might have fallen between or under the coffins.
Three had gathered at Lady Elinore’s empty tomb in the center of the necropolis and were looking around in apparent confusion. The image struck Quinn as worker bees just emerged from their hive, wondering where their queen had gone. Isolated thoughts floating in his brain suddenly coalesced in a flash of understanding.
Whatever cameras Markov had down here would be recording this macabre scene. He had said he wanted to make the ultimate horror film, to “out-Tod Tod.” Browning’s climactic scene in
Freaks
—the freaks stalking and slithering through the storm for revenge—had sent many moviegoers fleeing from the theater. The real-life scene unfolding below made Browning’s look like quaint horror movie hokum.
“We need to start the hellfire
now
,” Quinn said. “Before any of these things have a chance to get out of here and join forces with Markov.”
Johnny started the the flamethrower. “We can go down the center aisle. The coffins are wood. I won’t have to torch them all. They’re close enough together that all I have to do is get some of the ones along the aisle started. They’ll spread it to the rest.”
“We’ve got to get to the aisle on the other side of Elinore’s tomb that will take us to your apartment. I don’t think those loyal subjects hovering around it are going to just stand there and let that happen.”
“Then you slash and I burn,” Johnny said.
Quinn looked along the aisle and made a quick calculation. “There are about a dozen coffins on each side of the aisle. Even if you only light a few, they could take too long to catch fire. We could use some kindling.”
“The clothing on the corpses will be my kindling,” Johnny said.