Chapter 20 - The Unborn Terror
Nathan’s bullet struck Vanessa high in the right shoulder, spinning her backward with the impact.
Kane simultaneously engaged the three biohazard surgeons, cutting them down with precise bursts before they could reach their sidearms.
Nathan charged up the surgical ramp three steps at a time, vaulting over the guardrail. He drew his combat knife, slicing Leo’s leather restraints in two rapid strokes, pulling the weeping child behind his body. "I’ve got you, Leo! I’ve got you!"
On the floor of the gallery, Vanessa lay propped against the bank of control monitors, blood pooling from her shoulder. But she wasn't crying out in pain. She was laughing—a wet, choked, triumphant laugh that chilled Nathan to his very core.
"You're too late, Nathan," she gurgled, blood dripping from her lips. "Look at the terminal... look at the timer!"
Kane stepped onto the gallery, his rifle trained on her chest. He glanced at the main console. "Nathan... the cryogenic tanks... they’re venting."
Across the vast subterranean cavern, the dozens of glass vivariums began to hiss violently, clouds of liquid nitrogen obscuring the floor. The hundreds of artificial wombs hanging from the ceiling were shuddering, their blue liquid turning dark, churning as if the contents inside were waking up.
"You thought there was only one?" Vanessa rasped, her hands clutching her glowing, pulsating belly. Her skin was stretching to an impossible degree, the seams of her flesh straining as the thing inside thrusted violently against her abdominal wall. "The entire colony... they all share the link. When my blood spilled... the cycle triggered."
Suddenly, the steel floor of the cavern shuddered with a massive, rhythmic impact from deep within the flooded subterranean chambers below.
*THUMP.*
Then another.
*THUMP.*
The sound of shattering glass echoed through the dense fog as one of the massive incubation vats at the center of the room cracked from top to bottom. A thick, gelatinous blue liquid gushed across the floorboards, carrying with it a shape that was far too large, far too long, and moving with sickening, predatory agility through the shadows.
Nathan shoved Leo into Kane’s arms. "Get him to the jet! NOW!"
"I’m not leaving you, Nathan!" Kane shouted over the deafening blare of the structural collapse alarms.
"GET HIM OUT!" Nathan screamed, leveling his rifle into the creeping blue fog. "I’ll blow the main fuel line and bury this place!"
Kane hesitated for a fraction of a second, then scooped Leo into his arms and sprinted down the ramp toward the blast tunnel.
Nathan turned back toward Vanessa to retrieve the master override key from her neck. But when he reached the control console, the bloody spot where she had fallen was empty.
A smear of crimson and glowing blue slime trailed away from the platform, leading directly down into the yawning abyss of the flooded sub-level drainage shaft.
Nathan leaned over the edge, flashlight beam slicing through the rising mist.
Ten feet below him, clinging to the vertical ladder with unnatural, spider-like strength, was Vanessa. Her jaw was unhinged, her eyes entirely glowing with a terrifying, luminescent blue fire. And from her torn, ruptured abdomen, protruding through the shredded fabric of her gown, two pale, glistening hands—far too small to be adult, yet far too long-fingered to be human—reached out from inside her womb, clawing at the cold steel rungs of the ladder, pulling her down into the darkness.
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From the black water beneath her, a child’s voice—sounding identical to Leo’s, but duplicated by a dozen discordant echoes—whispered up through the mist:
*"Father... why did you make us wait in the dark?"*
