Fast (68 page)

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Forest braced his arms over his face as the trolley fell.

            Air tanks toppled from the trolley, hammering his legs and torso. Recoiling from the impacts, he expected the trolley to crush away his life. The full force of the toppling trolley never arrived.

            He peered around his arms and saw the trolley’s frame had collided with the wall above his head. A scuba tank, a bright yellow one, had fallen in a way that was propping up the trolley.

            Forest lay in the small recess between the wall, the floor and the trolley. Still dazed from the first impact, he didn’t question his luck. God knew he was due for some.

            The air tanks still hissed all around him, and suddenly he felt the entire trolley shake violently above him. Its steel frame started bending down and shrinking his small refuge.

            The creature’s on the trolley! It’s trying the reach the air tanks I’m lying on!

            Forest started squirming from under the trolley. In a second, his legs were free and he squeezed out. As his boots came free, the trolley collapsed into the space he had just occupied.

            Spinning on his butt-cheek, he threw his back up against the wall and shimmied away on his hands.

            Get away from the trolley. Get away from the horrible thing that is tap dancing on the trolley.

            Forest stopped after three meters. Any further, and he would move into the terrorist’s firing solution. As it was, only the creature’s bulk blocked the terrorist’s line of fire.

            A loud cracking sound drew Forest’s attention across the pool room.

            You must be joking. Can this get any worse?

            On the far side of the pool, Forest saw a second creature hurling itself against the plexiglass splash barrier. Huge cracks zigzagged away from the impact. Beyond the barrier, Vanessa stood at a workstation, frantically connecting pieces of computer equipment. She glanced up at the creature, over to Forest, and then back to what she was doing.

           
You’ve got to do something, Marine. No good just sitting here. Your orders are to protect her at all costs.

            A few meters further along the wall from Forest stood the mobile air compressor. It measured about a third the size of the scuba trolley. It wouldn’t offer much cover from sustained weapon fire.

            But it might offer mobile cover. If I could get behind it and wheel it towards….

            Forest realized it was a stupid idea. Desperate. The creatures would be on him in seconds.

            Suddenly he had a slightly-less-desperate idea. If he could reach the north hatch, he might be able to draw off the second creature and give Vanessa a chance to escape from the control room. He would need to both distract the creature on the scuba trolley and move right through the terrorist’s line of fire.

            It all depended on whether the terrorist would risk attracting the creatures to himself with gunfire.

            Forest moved along the wall, bracing himself as he entered the terrorist’s firing line. He glanced towards the south hatch. No sign of the gunman.

            Reaching the air compressor, he scanned the controls and made up his mind.

            Switch on the air compressor, run for the north hatch, and pray to the sweet lord Jesus that the compressor’s vibrations mask my footsteps until I reached the hatch.

            He could do nothing about the terrorist at the north hatch. The man might shoot, or he might not.

            Either way, things were about to get a whole lot crazier. He reached up and switched on the air compressor, hoping the machine hadn’t taken any bullet damage.

            The compressor fired up with a startling roar.

            Move, Marine!

            Forest jumped up and sprinted towards the north hatch. He couldn’t help but look back. As he turned his head, he saw the first creature tackle the compressor.

            Yes!

            He enjoyed a surge of new hope for the split second that it took to look forwards again -

            - and find a third creature now blocking the north hatch that he was sprinting towards.

            With absolutely no other choice, he slid to a halt, right out in the open, midway between the pool and the trolley. Arms waving, he twisted his torso to maintain his balance, scanning desperately in every direction. The creature behind him rolled around with the air compressor. The newly arrived creature at the north hatch extended tentacles into the room. The creature at the splash barrier looked only seconds from reaching Vanessa.

            And the terrorist now stood at the south hatchway with his eyes locked on Forest.

            I need help. I need help right now,
thought Forest.

            He felt a bead of sweat run down his forehead, over his cheek and down his neck. Carefully, he pressed home his last magazine of pistol ammunition.
Click
.

            The terrorist stepped through the south hatchway, sliding gracefully into the pool room. He slunk a few steps down the wall like a child playing hide and seek.

           
What the hell are you up to? Why are you….

            Then Forest saw the creature appear at the south hatchway behind the man. As the creature appeared, the man stopped dead still.

            The creature must have forced him in here. He’s just as trapped as I am. He knew that coming in here might mask his vibration signature. Oh, that’s just absolutely lovely. It’s a stalemate. Neither of us can do a thing.

            Neither man could fire without alerting the creatures to their location. Forest found the terrorist watching him, probably thinking the exact same thing.

            The terrorist, moving his hands slowly, shouldered his rifle and drew something from a fatigue pocket.

            Checkmate, it was a grenade.

            Forest recognized the grenade’s potential instantly. The terrorist could throw the grenade and kill Forest without drawing the creature to his own position. Forest couldn’t run from the grenade without attracting the creatures. The explosion might even draw the creature away from the south hatchway and give the terrorist a chance to flee, leaving Vanessa trapped.

            Corporal Kelso Forest suddenly heard one of his mother’s favorite sayings in his head. A saying from when he and his two older brothers would wrestle rough.

           
This is all going to end in tears.

            She was generally correct. He managed a smile at the ludicrous situation. Certain circumstances promised nothing but a bad ending. Forest raised his pistol and sighted on the terrorist. He shook his head in a big emphatic ‘NO’.
Don’t do it, or I WILL shoot you.

            The terrorist withdrew the grenade’s pin and jerked his arm back.

            Forest fired three times, knowing his shots sealed his own fate.

            The first bullet hit the terrorist in his shoulder. The next two burrowed into the man’s side. The grenade flew wildly off course.

            Forest spun, morbidly curious as to which creature would reach him first. They were coming from everywhere. Only the creature after Vanessa wasn’t attracted to the gunshots.

            Then something twigged in the back of Forest’s mind. Even with death charging towards him from every direction, his military training forced an important question to the forefront of his brain.

            Where did that grenade just go?

            BOOOOOM!

            Forest was sweeping his eyes left when the grenade exploded under the diving trolley.

            The trolley flew apart like lego dropped on a landmine. The creature on the trolley was blown into a thousand airborne chunks like ejecta from a volcano.

            And a yellow scuba tank rocketed across the diving arena like a meteor. Forest just had time to realize it was the same tank that had saved him earlier before it collided into his chest.

            He flew backwards through the air, his body wrapped around the tank, and splashed down into the center of the pool.

#

Vanessa looked up from the workstation as the scuba trolley exploded.

            The explosion rocked the control room.

            She saw three things happen. The scuba trolley flew violently apart. The creature on the trolley was shredded. And one of the scuba tanks flew across the diving arena and collided into Corporal Forest.

            Forest slammed backwards like a man standing before a bus. He flew through the air for thirty feet and crashed down into the pool. His body was still wrapped around the scuba tank when he sunk out of sight.

            Vanessa left the templates and ran to the splash barrier, ignoring everything but the spot where Forest hit the water. She scanned the pool surface, but the debris raining into the pool from the explosion obscured her view. All she could see was choppy water.

            Could someone survive an impact like that?

            She leant over the workstation, pressing her hand against the barrier. Her eyes never left the pool for second.
I can’t see him. He could be knocked out and drowning right now. I need to do something.

            A tremendous thump shuddered through the plexiglass. She turned as the splash barrier caved into the control room. Down the far end, the barrier folded over the workstations. The creature clambered through the gap.

            It’s broken in!

            Vanessa had learned two things about the creatures from her computer model. The second thing she learned could hopefully help David, but right now she was hoping the first thing she’d learned could save herself. As the creature scrambled over the collapsed splash barrier, she ripped a computer keyboard free from the nearest console.

            Gripping the keyboard at one end, she dashed three steps away from the creature. She leapt onto the chair she’d been using earlier.

            The creature ploughed through the control room towards her, tearing computers off the workstation and slamming office chairs from its path.

            Taking one final look at the creature, she swung the computer keyboard two-handed with all her strength. The end of the keyboard arced up towards the ceiling. She had never tested a theory with such immediate and dire consequences.

            Please work.

            As the creature smashed into her chair, her keyboard collided with the ceiling fire-sensor.

            Vanessa tumbled forward over the creature’s head and down its humping back. She hit the floor behind the creature with one leg bent up over an overturned office chair.

            The sprinkler system stuttered once and then
blasted
out water. Big droplets smashed over everything. Every drop caused its own tiny vibration signature. The cumulative effect, she hoped, was a blanket of vibrations that might ‘blind’ the creatures for a short time. In the last moment before Forest was hit by the scuba tank, she had programmed all the lab’s sprinkler systems to be triggered from the control room. She was hoping to save Forest with the plan. She desperately hoped it wasn’t too late to help the Marine.