by Walter Lane
Copyright 2002 by Walter Lane
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Nondescript music from an oldies station drifted from a radio playing somewhere in the lab. With an eye glued to the microscope, Jedidiah said, “Gimme another one,” and waved his hand toward the large, glass bowl holding the crickets. “The biggest one this time!” he added. “Something nice and fat.” He adjusted the microscope and stared at the innards of the dissected cricket on the slide. “Ah, the color is really go-go!”
Polly the lab assistant lifted the glass lid and snaked her glove-covered hand in like a predator on the kill. She grabbed the biggest one of the bunch and grimaced at the feel of the disgusting thing even through the rubber glove. Pinching it between her forefinger and thumb, she drew it out, its legs and feelers wiggling in protest. She replaced the lid and brought the cricket over to the table. The bright lamp beside the microscope lit the top. She waited with the specimen in hand.
Jedidiah leaned back from the instrument. His white lab coat rustled softly. He looked at the creature in Polly’s grip and smiled. “Oh yeah, a good one!” He handed her a culture jar, the lid ventilated with tiny holes. “Put it in this.” He turned again to the microscope.
She put the shallow glass container on the table and worked off the lid one handed. She inserted the fat cricket and trapped it under the top. The thing wiggled and stretched inside the transparent prison, excited but unharmed.
“Maybe you’ll have even better luck with this one,” said Polly as she labeled the culture.
She looked over the research lab, just one of many at Hezett Pharmaceuticals. She had never worked in this one before. She had to have her security rating upgraded to class B before she could work in one the high security labs in the basement. Dozens of cultures containing cricket parts soaking in one solution or another lay everywhere on every surface that could hold them. The white walls of the lab as well as the large tables and the large plate-glass windows looking out into the carpeted hall were clean and gleaming. A sterile environment was essential. She recalled Dr. Franks’ instructions: Under no circumstances allow the cultures near any contaminates. She mused, All this for the sake of a new mouthwash. The animals used in the experiments were soulless; she just wished they were painless as well. It had taken time to steel herself to aid in experiments on dogs, cats and rabbits, the cute contingency. Crickets and other bugs, however, were no problem. Probably didn’t feel pain anyway.
She joked, “Look at how many crickets have died for your little project, Dr. Franks.”
“Yeah,” he chuckled. “Cricket Hell hath enlarged itself.”
She did not understand the reference but smiled anyway.
“And please, just call me Jed,” Dr. Franks added. “Everyone does.”
The telephone on the corner of the table rang; Jedidiah pushed the button for the speaker. “Franks!” he answered.
“Jed, Bonnitt here. How are things coming along?”
Jedidiah smiled. “Going pretty good.” He rubbed his eyes. “The last specimen lived about two minutes. Isn’t that about right, Polly?”
“Yes, just over two minutes,” Polly agreed.
“Is that you, Polly!” Bonnitt asked, cheerfully.
“Yes, Dr. Bonnitt.”
Jed said, “The specimen I just cut up is under the scope right now. The color of the brain is a bright green indicating a high level of chlorophyll. If we can adjust the reagent to the next sample so it lives, say five minutes after ingesting it we should be able to formulate the chlorophyll solution to an even higher dose. That’ll mean the new mouthwash could safely deliver more chlorophyll without the bad taste.
“So we’re close!”
“Very close.”
“Good, very good,” Bonnitt purred, his voice a smooth baritone. “They’ll be happy to hear that at your meeting tomorrow.” He added, “By the way, Jed, how do you like the new lab assistant we got you? Pretty good on short notice, eh?”
“Yes, she’s doing a super job!” Jed exclaimed. Polly smiled. “I was really worried when Roberta left on such short notice, but Polly has stepped in admirably.”
Bonnitt said, “I’ll come down about eight tomorrow morning and go over the report before we ship it out to Dinah.” (At the mention of Dinah’s name, Jed’s skin tingled.) “See ya,” Bonnitt said and hung up.
Jed replaced the telephone and looked at the Mickey Mouse watch on his wrist: five-thirty. He took the cricket in the culture jar from Polly and laid it beside the microscope. Taking a droplet, he filled it with the reagent that, as Polly understood, slightly altered the insect’s metabolism to withstand chlorophyll poisoning.
“I’m going to use three drops this time.”
He undid the top of the culture enough to accept the end of the droplet. He picked it up and squeezed the rubber pump on the top. The three drops of the brown reagent covered the bottom of the culture and inundated the cricket. He popped the culture lid closed again.
“There, we’ll let that soak in. If the cricket survives the increased dosage we’ll apply the chlorophyll solution early tomorrow morning and see how long it lives.” Jed crossed his fingers. “Let’s hope for five minutes, tomorrow.”
Polly asked, “How does the reagent alter the bug’s metabolism? Does it enlarge the internal organs?”
“No,” answered Jed. “It, in fact, slightly modifies the cricket’s DNA. The change is not localized but goes throughout the bug’s entire system.” He stood up from the table and picked up the bottle of reagent. “I’ve never used this exact mixture before and never such a large dose. It’s strong stuff.” He took the bottle to a metal cabinet with biohazard stickers on the doors and locked it up. “The basic element of the reagent is actually the same we used in a psychotropic drug we developed for the CIA to use in their experiments in psychic research. The bonding agent goes to the brain and attaches itself.”
“Psychic research?” Polly asked. “The CIA?”
“Oh, yes! Once upon a time our federal spook patrol was trying to train psychically gifted people to read the ruskies minds long distance,” Jed said as he walked to the small sink in the counter against the wall. “They were trying to develop a drug to help with that. Don’t know how it ever worked out.” He gave his hands a quick rinse and pulled a bunch of paper towels from the dispenser.
Polly laughed. “Well, you better be careful what you tell me; they may be tapping your psychic hotline right now.”
At five-thirty, after catching up on some reports, Polly shut down the computer on the desk in the corner and turned off the radio sitting on the countertop against the wall; Hotel California stopped right in the middle of play. She and Dr. Franks stood facing the lab door as Jed punched in the security code on the numbered pad mounted on the wall.
The next morning at five a.m., Polly stood in front of the lab door and punched in the entry code. So far, she liked the job and Dr. Franks seemed like a pretty decent guy to work for, not too demanding and nice to be around. Coming in so early to check on the cricket culture was not too much of a demand. She pushed open the door, stepped inside and came to a dead stop. She looked over the shards of plastic and glass scattered across the lab floor. The door closed behind her.
There was a low droning like a bullfrog singing. She looked around and saw the microscope lying on its side. Cultures were scattered everywhere, on the floor and tables. The computer keyboard lay in the desk chair. Whatever had been moving around had been at it for some time.
Then it jumped onto the table, a giant cricket.
To Polly it was obvious the cricket’s growth, so big, so fast, was a side effect of the reagent. The chemicals had had all night to work. However, she was also sure the mutated monster before her was not something Jed had counted on. She backed slowly toward the door. The thing, a good foot long, sat on the table eating the remains of one of its fellows from the bowl. It rubbed its hind legs together and, instead of the cheerful chirp of a cricket, a low, sinister resonance filled the room—an unclean sound. The large, glass bowl that had held the crickets was empty. The mutation had fed.
It was black, glossy, and foul. It moved side to side, chewing; its legs and feelers rasped against the Formica top of the table in an intermittent tattoo. The antennae wiggled frantically as it ate…then stopped. The head became still, the insectile mouth, beaks set side to side, stopped chewing. It was looking at her.
She took a short breath and backed to the door. To punch in the security code, she would have to turn her back on the monstrosity. The thought almost made her scream. The thing squatted by the telephone; that would be no help; she simply had to get out. She rehearsed the code in her mind: 4-8-9-3, visualizing each punch. It would only take a second to do it, but it would be a very long second. She turned quickly around, punched in the first two numbers and felt a cold weight against her back and a horrible, sharp pain digging into her neck down to the spinal column. She screamed, thrashing her arms then fell to the floor.
***
“Scooty scoot-scoot and shooby do-do,” sang Bonnitt as he rode the elevator down. He figured he was probably one of the few people in the world who actually liked elevator music. He often hummed or, like now, scatted along with it when he was alone. He checked his watch: eight a.m.
The elevator doors opened and he stepped out facing the white concrete wall of the high security sub-level. There were two ways to the lab entrance. He could go right and take the shorter route down the hall running beside the big windows. Or, go left, the longer way around several corners. That way laid the ice cream machine dispensing free fudge-sickles, chocolate éclairs and other goodies on a stick. A benefit all the staff enjoyed immensely.
At the lab door, Bonnitt stood and held his free hand out toward the number pad beside the secured door. His other hand held his breakfast éclair, already half eaten. The peanuts were a little salty. He recalled the times he’d been chided for using the disable code simply because it was easier to remember than the many security access codes to the labs, each one different for each lab door. He spent two seconds trying to remember the code to Jed’s lab and then whispered, “Ah, forget it!” and punched in the disable code. The security code would reset at the end of the workday, anyway. He heard the click of the magnetic lock release and pushed against the door. It knocked against something and he pushed harder. He heard something from inside dragging across the slick floor.
He stepped just inside the door and dropped the éclair to the bloody floor. His back against the wall, the door clicked shut beside him. His eyes stretched wide at the sight of what was left of Polly’s body on the floor and the wiggling horrors crawling over her eating the remains of the poor lab assistant.
He put a hand over his mouth to control the gagging. On the table sat an impossibly large cricket. On the floor, at Polly’s bloody feet, squatted another big cricket, nibbling at the loosened flesh. The dozen or so other crickets feeding were of various sizes, from three to eight inches.
The deep rumblings of the basso cricket on the table made his stomach churn. He pressed both palms against the cool wall behind and watched the monster watching him. Quickly, the large cricket at Polly’s feet leaped from the floor and bit into his throat. He grabbed the thing with both hands and pulled it away, tearing open his windpipe. He fell to the floor beside Polly and writhed as he suffocated; the bites of the crickets crawling over his body were excruciatingly painful.
***
Jed stood at the plate glass window and looked through as Dinah read a lab report. Her slight and curvaceous frame, covered in a white, lab pants suit, sat atop a lab stool. On her, the utilitarian garment looked as fashionable as anything in the pages of a glamour magazine. Lovely as a spring morn, Jed would have been tempted to say if he was of a poetic turn. Long golden hair, sporting a body wave, lay parted on the left and fell to her shoulders in lustrous strands of sunshine. Her face, the skin tinted with peaches and cream, was narrow and illuminated by doe-eyes, round, soft and blue. They gleamed like candle-lit diamonds as she ran them over the pages of the report. A long, aquiline nose rose above two wide, full lips. She reminded Jed of the beauties he’d seen only in the grandest of old masters’ oil paintings. She would have fulfilled any painter’s dream. She leaned forward and picked up another report. The cuff of her right leg rose a few inches and revealed a perfect turn of ankle.
“Man! She really is go-go,” he whispered. He thought about asking her to lunch; it was getting about that time. He wondered if she’d go with him. What if she didn’t want to? That would be awkward.
Dinah looked briefly over the report and put it down again. She began shuffling through the rest of the papers on the table looking for something.
Jed leaned forward and knocked on the glass. He smiled and waved as she turned. She returned the salutation. He walked to the door and let himself in.
“And good morning!” she said, in a chipper tone.
“Morning!” he returned. He stepped over to the table and stood near her.
She resumed shuffling through the stack of reports. “So, how’d the meeting go this morning?”
“Went good. We ran late. I haven’t even been to the lab this morning.” He pointed to the stack of files. “If you’re looking for my report, it’s not there. Like I said, I haven’t been back to the lab to send it out yet”
Dinah nodded.
He said, “So, you do anything special last night?”
“Just read a little.” She looked up at him. “Have you ever read Dracula?”
Jed shook his head. “No, never got around to it.”
“None of the movie versions really capture the whole scope of the story?” She glanced up at him. “I bet your favorite is the old Bela Lugosi version, right?”
Jed nodded. “Yeah, it is.”
“It’s a good book! The language is really outdated but the story still comes across. I’ll loan it to you when I’m finished.”
“Oh, thanks! That’d be great!” he replied with a touch too much enthusiasm.
“Sure,” she murmured.
He may have been clumsy with beautiful women but Jed wasn’t stupid. He knew he was trying too hard with Dinah and it showed. He was glad he didn’t mention he had never seen the old version of Dracula, not really a horror fan.
“So you think it’s done?” she asked.
“Oh, yeah. Bonnitt said to have it done by eight; he was suppose to go down and look over the report with Polly.” Jed checked with Mickey; it was twelve-oh-five. “She came in way early to work on it. There were only a few readings left to take before we apply the final solution. I’m sure she’s finished by now.”
Dinah stood up from the lab stool. “Good! Let’s go.”
As they walked toward the elevator, Jed stole glances at her hair. Sunlight poured through the second floor hall windows and reflected against the loose strands bellowing in her wake turning them into gold.
Eyes forward, she said, “It’s Morning Shine.” The decorative carpet muted the sounds of their footfalls. Only a few people passed them in the halls. Most of the employees had already gone to lunch. She turned her head and looked at him. The diamonds were bright. “That’s the name of my shampoo. That is what you were thinking, isn’t it?”
“Yes, I was just noticing the nice sheen.” He hoped she did not notice the nice sheen on his face. He felt like the blood in his cheeks had suddenly turned to molten lead. Suddenly the idea of asking her to lunch seemed overwhelmingly ridiculous.
On the basement level, the elevator doors parted and they stepped into the hall. Lunch out of the question, Jed thought about offering to get Dinah at least an ice cream. However, he decided against it; she was no doubt in a hurry. This mouthwash project was a big deal with the company. To his surprise, she turned left and started toward the ice cream machine.
“Hope they got Nutty-Bars!” she exclaimed.
At the lab door, Jed entered the code as Dinah threw her half-eaten treat into the trashcan, bringing food into the lab strictly against policy. She’d seen Bonnitt do it, but he had the clout to get away with it, she didn’t. Jed pushed the door open and held it a moment so Dinah could follow. He suddenly stepped backward and bumped hard into her.
She smiled and said, “Careful, Jed! We’ve got a traffic jam.” He turned around; his gaping mouth and wide eyes startled her. “Jed! What’s the matter?” For a moment, he stared blankly at her. Then, taking her by the hand, they rushed around the corner into the other hall and faced the window. She threw her free hand to her mouth and glared at the grotesquerie.
Blood smears were all over; footprints of the crawling horrors had stained everything in the lab. The two biggest of the monsters squatted on the table beside the overturned microscope, feelers moving alternatively back and forth, side to side like some kind of communication between them. Several others, all large and of various sizes, lay on the floor nibbling at the bodies or eating what appeared to be smaller siblings. A couple of big ones were digging into Bonnitt’s eye sockets eating away what was left of the soft tissue there.
Jed reached over and turned on the speaker on the intercom. He put both hands to his mouth and called, “Hey! Anybody in there!”
There was no answer but the big crickets on the table looked his way.
“The
cricket must have just been ready to lay her eggs.” Jed’s voice shook.
“That’s why she was so fat.” He glanced at Dinah. She stared mesmerized
at the horror, but nodded slightly. “When she mutated so did the eggs.”
“What should we do?” Dinah said, softly.
His voice more firm, he said, “With this super-normal metabolism, the creatures will die soon.” He laid a palm against the glass. “It’s their accelerated metabolic rate that makes them so hungry, even to the point of eating their own after ingesting two adult—” He realized his gruesome faux pas. “Sorry, Dinah.” He put his other hand against the glass. “At least we don’t have to worry about destroying them. They should die in a matter of hours. But we have to make absolutely sure these things don’t get out.”
Dinah tore her eyes from the window. “You mean so they don’t mate with crickets outside?”
“It’s not inconceivable. The females while still small could mate with normal male crickets. Same with the males; they could possibly fertilize the eggs of normal crickets.” One of the large crickets on the table lifted its head toward Jed and looked at him as if listening. Through the intercom, with the speaker on, it would be easy for the things to hear him talking. “In a matter of time the whole cricket eco-system could be upset resulting in thousands, if not millions, of these things.” He pointed to the monstrosities, the big one still staring at him, no doubt still hungry. “It would be like a plague out of the Apocalypse.”
He looked down at the bloodied skeleton of what was once his lab assistant. “Oh, Polly, Polly.”
Just then the big cricket that had stared at him jumped against the window and landed on the table underneath it. Startled, Jed and Dinah stepped back. With its antennae, the monster quickly tapped three times on the glass: Right antenna, left, right again--tap, tap, tap. Then it again stared at Jed.
“That is so strange,” said Dinah. “The way it acts, it’s as if it recognizes you.”
Jed’s eyes widened. “Let me try something.” He cleared his throat and loudly said, “Bonnitt! Over here!”
The other big cricket on the center table jumped against the window and landed beside the first. It looked at Jed, its antennae and feelers wiggling frantically.
“Oh, sweet mother!”
“Jed, what’s the matter?”
“Oh, dear, sweet mother!” He stepped backwards and bumped to a stop against the gray wall behind him; he buried his face in his hands.
Dinah stepped over and pulled his hands away. “Jed, tell me what’s going on.”
He took a quick breath. “They absorbed them, Polly and Bonnitt.”
“What do you mean absorbed them!”
He bowed his head. “In the reagent, we used an old psychotropic drug that among other things was supposed to have the ability to induce or enhance physic ability. It also strengthened the brain against poisoning. That’s why we used it.” He wiped his forehead. “When the things mutated, they gained, I think, the ability to psychically absorb their victims.” He stepped away from the wall and rubbed his hands together.
Again, Dinah brought her hand to her mouth. “You meant those two things absorbed the minds of Polly and Bonnitt!”
Jed
shook his head. “Not exactly. The cricket brain, even these mutations,
simply could not hold the whole mental and emotional totality of a human
being. I think they have caught the bare essence, what you could call the
soul or perhaps the sense of awareness and holds that trapped.”
With the realization that these things
were a real kind of psychopomp his mouth became dry.
Dinah slowly shook her head. “Horrible,” she whispered. “Absolutely horrible.”
“I’m assuming these things think and act on fundamental instinct like any insect, except they know who they are…and evidently who we are.”
They looked down at the creatures looking up at them.
***
Familiar. It was feeling not a thought. The face on the other side of that which it couldn’t jump through was familiar. ‘Polly,’ the sound the prey had made, was familiar, too. It turned to its mate and wiggled its antennae. The other wiggled its antennae in return, acknowledging the message: There’s food; let’s go get it.
***
Dinah turned and watched as Jed stepped to the far right of the window.
“I’m going to try again and see if this one,” he pointed to the one on the right, “reacts to Polly’s name again”
He called her name. At the mention of it, the thing looked toward him the way a dog does when its name is called. The monster rubbed its hind legs together and made a buzzing, an awful sound that reminded Dinah of the Lovecraft classic, Whisperer in the Darkness.
Jed grabbed his stomach with both hands and gritted his teeth. “What have I done!” he winced. “What have I done?”
Dinah placed a hand on his arm. “It’s not your fault, Jed. This is a freak of science and nature. No one in the world could have foreseen this.”
One of the bigger crickets, reddish markings on the back of it’s shell, jumped from Bonnitt’s face and landed a few feet in front of the lab door. The electric door-catch clicked and the door swung open. It pushed the depleted bodies away easily.
Dinah shouted, “The door’s not secure! The thing set off the motion detector!”
The big cricket hopped out and the others followed. The Polly cricket and the Bonnitt cricket jumped off the table, leapt across the floor and out the door just before it swung shut.
“Let’s go!” Jed shouted. “They’ll come this way.”
Dinah looked at him.
He explained, “They’re hunting,” and took her hand again. Hurriedly down the hall, he led her holding her hand so tightly it hurt.
They approached a large wooden door on the right. There were only two other labs than Jed’s down here in the secure basement and this was one of them. The other was far on the other side of the basement level. Dinah was sure both labs would be locked tight and empty. The finely prepared, free lunches in the cafeteria were always a big draw; the lab personnel were surely there by now.
At the door, Jed released her hand. It was white where he had held it. She rubbed it and felt the blood begin to flow back. He grabbed the handle and twisted it. It did not turn. He didn’t know any code except the one for his lab; he didn’t waste precious seconds trying the keypad. Instead, he banged repeatedly on the door with his fist. The knocks were so loud anyone inside would have heard them even from one of the storage closets.
“You know the code?” Jed asked. Dinah shook her head. He exclaimed, “Let’s go!”
They turned to start down the hall but stopped at hearing the low drone of giant crickets rubbing their legs. They looked behind them and saw far at the end of the hall a horde of horrors bouncing toward them.
***
Hunger. A feeling and not thought. The male wiggled its antennae to the others and commanded them to hurry, the food was getting away. It felt a special something within the big female that bounced beside him, a something that he himself possessed, that was lacking in the others that hunted with him. When the prey had sounded, ‘Bonnitt’ there had been recognition, knowledge that the sound meant something. It wasn’t just for food that the others hunted, it was for that special something as well.
***
Dinah pointed to a hall closet ahead. They rushed to it and hurried inside. Jed pulled the door closed with a bang and placed a hand against it. He turned on the light.
In near-panic, Dinah blurted, “Can they get in!” They stood shoulder to shoulder in the small closet.
He shook his head. “This is a steel door, good and solid, at least an inch thick.” He took a breath. “It’s an electrical room.” He pointed to the large, gray boxes mounted on the walls. Many large conduits ran along the wall to the top of the gray boxes. “These must be the electrical panels, the circuit breakers for the lights and equipment on the basement level here.” He glanced quickly at the door. “I guess the fire code requires steel doors to be used for electrical closets.”
In the corner stood a large, single pipe running from the floor to the ceiling, a drain, Dinah figured.
There began waves of tapping against the door. Jed gritted his teeth. “We can’t just stay in here. We’ve got to figure something out.” He looked again at Mickey. “Pretty soon the others will be coming back. They’ll just walk into them like Polly and Bonnitt did.” He rubbed his eyes. “I don’t want anymore deaths on my conscience.”
“Jed, listen. It wasn’t your fault.”
“Maybe so. But if I just stand here and do nothing while Ripple, James and the others just stroll off the elevator and into the mouths of those things,” he hooked his thumb to the door, “that will be my fault.” He slowly shook his head. “I wish you’d had the chance to get to know her better. Polly was such a sweet lady.”
Dinah looked away and reflected on how people think they have forever to do things only for death to suddenly and cruelly dispel that delusion. She looked at him and asked, “How was it that the code was off and the auto-open was on?”
“Bonnitt was always bad about coming to the labs and using the disable code instead of the entry codes.” He shook his head. “From the way his body lay, he didn’t step far enough into the lab to set off the motion detector and activate the auto-open.”
Jed pounded his fist into his hand. “We’ve gotta do something!” The scratching and clicking of the crickets outside continued as he thought. In a moment, he said, “I have an idea,” and stepped to the corner with the drain.
“What are you doing?”
“Hunting for—this!”
He reached down for a reel of blue plastic coated wire. It lay atop a stack of two other reels of wire, one black, one white. “Maintenance people often keep extra wire handy in the electrical closets in case they need to redo some circuits.” He looked at the panel nearest the door, pulled off a three-foot length of wire, and began bending it back and forth. In a minute he broke off the length and dropped the metal reel.
Dinah watched as he put one end of the wire into his mouth and bit softly into it. With his teeth, he pulled off the blue plastic coating, revealing four inches of solid copper. He spit out the plastic and did the same with the other end. He moved quickly and quietly. Dinah kept silent; she didn’t want to interrupt his train of thought; she knew how lab minds worked.
“I’m gonna stick this here,” he said and forced one end between the edge of the door and door-jam. “Be sure to stay away from the door!” he warned and took up the dangling end of wire. With his free hand, he pulled open the door of the electrical switch box. “When the current hits them they should be stunned for a few moments at least. As soon as I pull the wire away from the box I’m gonna go left and run like lightening for the elevator. Okay?”
Dinah whispered, “Yes,” and made no arguments. One of them stood a better chance of making it than the two of them. With his longer legs, he was faster and the logical choice, the best bet for them both.
“You’ll be okay in here,” he said, “They can’t get through the steel door even if they do revive, and even the smallest of them are too big to crawl underneath.” He looked into her eyes. “There is one problem. This will probably knock the lights out; you’ll be in here in the dark.” He looked at her a moment longer and then leaned in and kissed her dry lips. He leaned back and said, “Sorry, but I’ve—” He bowed his head and shut up.
Too anxious to give the kiss much thought, she remained silent. She assumed the kiss was a good luck kind of thing.
He continued, “Let’s see if I can do this without getting electrocuted.”
He brought the wire toward the box and held it up. With his thumb, he pushed hard against the plastic toggle switch of one of the circuit breakers until the side of the switch rose a little.
He said, “I’m betting that they’re all huddled either against the door or against each other at the door. When the current hits it’ll travel through them all—I hope.”
Yes, so do I, thought Dinah.
“All I need now is to find a good hot spot.” He held the wire by the blue plastic and pushed the stripped copper end beneath the side of the switch. He paused a moment, slightly adjusted the wire and pushed again. “When I hit a terminal it’ll happen qu—” Instantaneously several sharp snaps sounded at the box, a small arch of electricity flashed from the breaker-box, the lights went out and the scratching against the door stopped.
Dinah heard the slight snap as he jerked the wire from the box and door and the small click it made it fell to the concrete floor. In an instant, he turned and grabbed the door handle and fled without looking back.
The emergency light in the hall blinked on and Dinah saw dark things lying on the floor. Quickly, she pulled the door shut. The darkness inside the electrical closet was as thick as the air was stale. Her breaths labored as much from panic as the air. She resisted a strong urge to fling open the door and run. A light tapping began at the door; in a few seconds it was again a steady tattoo. She stepped back against the wall and closed her eyes.
With the tapping there came something else, a sound like wood softly tearing. Jed had told her they couldn’t chew through the steel door. Her eyes opened wide at the recollection the wall was not made of steel.
“I’ve gotta get out of here.”
She looked around frantically and put out her hands. Against one of the breaker boxes she hit. A step forward and her hand rested against the door. She stood still a moment and thought, then she exclaimed, “I’ll do what he did!”
She sidestepped in front of the panel that Jed had used, the one closest to the door. He had pulled the wire out; the cause of the short removed. She felt for the switches and did to them what she had done to those at home whenever she had to reset a circuit breaker. Starting at the top she took the switch and flipped it all the way to the right then all the way to the left. It made a satisfying click. She repeated the procedure until she was at the bottom. She didn’t know for sure just which breaker he had used, but she did know it had had been in the first of the two rows. She should have hit upon it by now. She moved her hand to the very top of the panel of switches and there found a big switch mounted horizontally not vertically like the smaller one. The big one was the panel main she was sure. When Jed shorted the circuit breaker, he jumped the big breaker as well. She pulled the switched all the way down and then pushed it all the way up. The light immediately blinked into life.
She looked over the labels of the various breakers; one of them read ELEVATOR CONTROLLER RELAY. She wasn’t exactly sure what that meant, but she was certain the huge elevator circuits were on separate lines and circuit boxes. However, she also had heard that small circuits were often used to control big ones. If Jed knocked out the big breaker, she thought, wouldn’t that mean all the circuits on the panel went out? She was sure it did.
Over the crunching of the monsters eating away the drywall, she said, “If the short knocked out some kind of relay control he may never have got inside the elevator. It could have been off-line by the time he got there.” A sick feeling seeped into her stomach.
She reached down, took the wire and repeated the procedure that Jed had done. Again, the light went out and the noise stopped. The wire came free as she yanked it and she grabbed the door handle. It took only a moment to push it open and leap over the creatures in the hall.
She pounded down the hall toward the lab. There was a sound of stirring behind her, a rain-like padding against the carpet. To look back would be death—and worse than death. At the hallway windows, she turned left and, as she feared, Jed lay in front of the closed elevator doors, his body covered in blood. Dinah was certain he was dead and did not hesitate. She quickly veered right and right again and pushed hard on the door handle. Because of Bonnitt, the code was unnecessary for entry; she swung open the door and closed it again, entering the split second in between.
Several thumps against the outside of the door let her know she had just barely made it. Chest heaving, she prattled over to the window and looked into the hall, the spot where she and Jed had stood watching the horrors. The horrors bounced around the corner and crouched there now looking at her. She looked at the telephone and saw the cords chewed away into useless detritus. No call for help, no warning would come from here. Whatever happened she would have to make happen.
She looked around for ideas. Wearily, she closed her eyes stretched her neck back. She opened her eyes and smiled at the ceiling. She wondered if the sprinklers here were connected with those in the hall. She bet they were all on the same system on this floor. Set off one, set off all.
She turned back toward the window. The things were now in a sort of formation, the three biggest in front. She thought she could guess why, but she wanted to test her theory.
She pushed the speaker button on the intercom. The lab, she knew, and all its components, including the intercom were on backup batteries. Government contracts demanded such redundant systems. She yelled, “Bonnitt!” and one of the mutant crickets leaped forward. “Polly!” she cried and another came forward. She closed and opened her eyes, hoping she was wrong. “Jed!” The third biggest one hopped forward and made two sharp buzzing sounds. It sounded a little like “go-go,” Jed’s favorite expression. Dinah hung her head. They were the three leaders—the three with souls.
Somewhere in the lab would be a lighter for the gas burners. She found it on the floor; spots of blood had begun to dry on it. She pulled the trigger of the long lighter and a flame appeared at the end. She held the flame up and held it under one of the sprinklers. In a couple of seconds dirty, brownish water burst from the ceiling and rained down in torrents. The water was dirty no doubt from being stored in the sprinkler system for a long time. An alarm wailed as the water fell. The indoor rainfall removed much of the blood from the lab tables and fixtures.
Soaked to the skin, she returned to the window and watched the monsters hopping frantically up and down the hall as the water descended heavily on them. In a minute, the water cleared to a white shower. The things, now waterlogged, hopped with less vigor; they were drowning. One by one, they dropped to the soaking wet carpet, legs and antennae twitched feebly.
Dinah
took one of the lab coats from the rack and pulled it over her head. At
the desk in the corner, she sat and waited for someone to come get her.
The alarm would bring help. She thought about poor Jed and shook her head.
In his own way, he had been really go-go.
