Clickers III (8 page)

In the initial few minutes of the power going out, the confusion inside the research center reached a chaotic level. The sense of desperation was almost palpable. Behind the communications area, Wade and Ed scrambled around, searching for candles and babbling to each other in quavering voices that betrayed their attempts to sound calm. Susan cowered in the corner of the lobby, her voice a sobbing whisper as she kept repeating, “Oh God, I don’t want to die, please don’t let me die!”

Jennifer was in the lobby, searching for candles or a flashlight—anything that would dispel the darkness—and Susan’s whining was getting on her nerves. “Shut up!” she barked, and instantly regretted it. Susan had never been in this type of situation before. Neither had Ed and Wade for that matter. “Let’s all just calm down and focus. If we start panicking, we won’t make it out of this alive.”

“You’re right.” Wade wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. “We’re running around like chickens with our heads cut off.”

Nodding, Ed sighed.

Susan stopped her litany and remained huddled in the corner.

“All we have to do is hide until morning,” Wade said. “The Dark Ones can’t handle the daylight, right? They hide from the sun.”

“That’s true,” Jennifer said, “but the same thing doesn’t apply to the Clickers.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.”

Outside, the sounds of the Clickers and the Dark Ones grew closer.

CLICK-CLICK! CLICK-CLICK!

“They’re getting closer,” Jennifer stated, frustrated that she couldn’t even find a goddamn flashlight in the lobby. The hallway that led to the inner recess of the research center was pitch black. She wondered why the back-up generators hadn’t kicked in. Was it possible they’d been destroyed too? If so, then that meant the Dark Ones were inside the building already.

“Hey, isn’t there a basement or a sub-cellar to this place?” Wade asked.

Jennifer was just about to respond with a yes, when the creaking of a door answered Wade’s question. The sound came from the communications area, and its suddenness startled Ed and Wade.

“Who is that?” Ed barked, his strong voice trembling slightly with fear.

The creaking grew louder, followed by the sound of wood resting on the floor. Then, a voice. Soft, with a slight musical island lilt to it, but definitely male. “Is that you Dr. Steinhardt? Is everything okay? I heard shouts, and then the lights went out.”

Jennifer felt herself relax. She recognized the voice.

“Is that you Keoni?” Ed asked.

“Yeah, it’s me. What’s going on?” A moment later a light appeared from the open trapdoor in the floor and Jennifer sighed in relief.

Keoni Mumea held a flashlight up. He was the research center’s groundskeeper and the closest thing to a native they had. Keoni was from the nearby Marshall Islands, and was part Samoan. He was dressed in knee-length shorts and a billowy T-shirt. His black bushy hair was long and he wore it pinned back from his face. He was standing on a rickety set of stairs that led down into the basement, from where he’d just emerged. Jennifer saw that there was a trapdoor in the floor of the reception area that was now open. Keoni cast a concerned look toward the lobby. “Man, what’s going on?”

Wade stepped toward the trapdoor. “Clickers, outside! They’re heading straight for us!”

“What?” It looked like Keoni was still trying to process what Wade had just told him.

“Clickers.” Ed Steinhardt was at the trapdoor now and his more authoritative tone cut through the panic. “
Homarus Tyrannous
. And the Dark Ones, as well.”

The color drained from Keoni’s caramel-colored skin. “Oh shit!”

“Oh shit is right,” Dr. Stenhardt said. He quickly filled Keoni in on everything that had happened, including the slaughter on the beach and the arrival of the black Clicker. Then he looked around the communications area. “Where’s Susan?”

Jennifer looked toward the lobby where she’d last seen Susan and saw the anthropologist was still cowering in the corner. The mayhem outside was growing louder. The sound of trees being broken down

cracked loudly in the distance and grew closer, along with another sound.

CLICK-CLICK! CLICK-CLICK!

Jennifer took a step toward Susan. “Susan, come on, we’re going into the basement!”

Susan shook her head. “Uh-uh, no way. We’ll be trapped down there.”

Wade called out from the communications area. “The trapdoor to the cellar is something these things won’t be able to find! We can hide down there!”

Susan shook her head more vigorously. She backed herself farther into the corner, her long brown hair hanging over her face. “No, I can’t…I…I—”

Forcing herself to stay calm, to not snap at the woman, Jennifer summoned all her courage and stepped into the lobby. Outside, the carnage grew closer amid the sound of more falling and cracking trees. There was a loud, guttural roar that Jennifer recognized as the war cry of the Dark Ones. “Susan, I know you’re scared. I’m scared, too. We can’t stay here and we can’t run out the back. They’ll catch us and kill us if we leave.”

“And we’ll be sitting ducks in the basement!” Susan shouted. She cast a frightened gaze at Jennifer. “I
won’t
go down there.”

CLICK-CLICK! CLICK-CLICK!

A loud crack split the din outside as another tree fell. This one sounded closer.

Behind her, Ed and Wade were stepping down the wooden ladder into the basement. Keoni was standing beside the open trap door to allow the men down, waiting for Jennifer and Susan. “Susan, Jennifer, come on!”

Jennifer reached out and gently grasped Susan’s elbow. “Come on, Susan—”

Susan jerked her arm away violently. “
Don’t touch me! Leave me
alone!”

Jennifer felt a sense of panic at her dilemma. Her instincts were telling her to leave Susan to fend for herself, join Keoni, and head downstairs. But a part of her could never live with herself if she did that. Especially if Susan was killed. “Susan, come on,
please!
”

Susan shook her head. Tears streamed down her face. The woman was absolutely terrified. “No! I
can’t
!”

“Ah, fuck it,” Keoni yelled. “Leave that
palagi
there, Jennifer. Come on!”

Suddenly furious, Jennifer grabbed a fistful of Susan’s hair and pulled the woman toward her. Susan howled. Jennifer grabbed Susan by the shoulder and half-dragged, half-shoved her out of the corner toward the communications area. “Shut the fuck up and
move
!”

A loud thump sounded from outside, followed by another ear-splitting crack. This one sounded like it was directly in front of the command center. Another minute and—

Susan struggled with Jennifer, digging her heels in and shouting, “
No! Leave me alone! You can’t make me!
”

“Shut up!” Jennifer grunted as she shoved Susan toward Keoni.

Keoni grabbed Susan and tried to steer her toward the trapdoor that led down to the basement. Susan resisted, teetering over the edge. Below them, Wade and Ed were looking up expectantly. Wade held his arms out, trying to urge Susan to come down. “Susan, it’s okay, it’s safe down here!”

“
No!
” Susan shouted.

CLICK-CLICK! CLICK-CLICK! CLICK-CLICK!

Louder, and getting closer…

“Screw this,” Jennifer said, feeling panic set in. “Keoni, let her go.”

Keoni let Susan go. The second he released his grip on her, Jennifer pushed the woman through the trapdoor.

Susan screamed as she fell through the trap door, bumping her way down the wooden steps. Wade and Ed shouted in surprise. Susan’s scream cut off abruptly, then she started crying.

Keoni looked at Jennifer in surprise. “Damn, girl, you don’t play around, do you?”

“Not in a situation like this. I’ve seen these things first hand.”

“I know. But here’s what I don’t understand. I thought the Livingston Administration said this species was exterminated.”

“Obviously, they missed a few.”

CLICK-CLICK! CLICK-CLICK! CLICK-CLICK!

Jennifer took a step down into the basement. Keoni was right behind her, closing the trapdoor behind them.

Jennifer had never been in the basement of the research center. Cast within the glow of the flashlight, her initial glimpse of the basement was that it comprised a small room. She didn’t have time to take in her surroundings, though. She had more pressing concerns.

Namely, trying to shut Susan up.

Susan was lying on her back, crying in a hoarse, loud voice. Wade and Ed were grouped around her, trying to calm her down. Wade was checking her for injuries. Ed cast a glance of disapproval at Jennifer. “Did you really have to push her down like that? You could have really

hurt her!”

“What would you rather have?” Jennifer asked. “A dead anthropologist, or a banged up and bruised one?” Jennifer settled down beside Susan, ignoring the men. Keoni stood behind them. From the first floor and outside, the sounds of the Clickers and Dark Ones grew closer, closer, until—

There was a loud crunch followed by a shaking of the earth. Jennifer felt her heart lodge in her throat but tried not to be too visibly frightened. That would only feed Susan’s negative energy. Frankly, she didn’t have the time for that.

“Susan,” Jennifer said. She reached out, grasped the woman’s face with her fingers and turned her head so they were facing each other. “You need to get in control of yourself.”

Susan could only cry louder.

Keoni sounded worried. “If they hear her—”

“They won’t hear her,” Jennifer said. “I promise. Can I borrow your shirt, Keoni?”

“My shirt? Okay.” Keoni quickly pulled his billowy T-shirt off and handed it to her. Jennifer took it by both ends and begin rolling it up, as if she were going to make a tourniquet.

Wade was finished with his brief physical examination for injuries. “She looks okay. Just some scratches and bruises.”

Susan wasn’t acting like she was okay. Her breath was coming in gasps and hitches. She was still crying, and her sobs were only gaining in volume. In a moment, she was going to start braying louder.

“She still needs to shut up, though,” Jennifer said. With Keoni’s T-shirt wound up, she quickly wrapped it around the other woman’s face and shoved it in her mouth, muffling her cries. Susan’s eyes flew open in surprise.

Wade and Ed gasped, too stunned to stop her. Jennifer tied the makeshift gag around Susan’s head.

A moment later, the front door upstairs burst open.

That was followed by another splintering crack that sounded louder.

It was definitely
not
the sound of a tree splitting in half.

Upstairs, something big and heavy tore through the lobby and smashed into a wall. Jennifer, Ed, Wade, and Keoni jumped in surprise. Susan stopped crying briefly and looked up from her position on the floor. With the gag stuffed in her face, she looked like a hostage. Plaster dust drifted down from the basement ceiling.

Amid the sounds of destruction, of furniture being smashed and walls being broken down came the sound of the Clickers, their claws snapping together in a frenzy. CLICK-CLICK CLICK-CLICK CLICK-CLICK!

“If they find that trapdoor…” Ed whispered fearfully.

“They won’t,” Keoni said softly. He stepped back toward the far wall and ran his hand along what Jennifer took to be a makeshift bookshelf. “Besides, we have this.” He pulled a wooden panel out from the shelf and the entire wall seemed to open up. A dark passageway yawned before them. Cool air drifted out of the blackness.

“Come on,” Keoni urged them. He stepped aside as Wade took a step forward.

“What the hell?” Dr. Steinhardt marveled. “I don’t remember anything about this building having any kind of underground passage.”

“It’s part of an old network from when Naranu was visited by various European countries,” Keoni said. “The Tribal Chiefs, they had tunnels like this one secretly built for years. Every time some well-meaning nation tried to colonize here, the tunnels came in handy. This building is over seventy years old and—”

Above them, the sound of destruction increased. One of the Dark Ones roared. It sounded like a thousand bull alligators in a swamp roaring together in unison.

Jennifer and Ed pulled Susan to her feet. Susan was no longer letting her fear control her. She was up and then standing at the doorway with Wade and Keoni. She dived through, followed quickly by Wade, Jennifer, and Ed. Keoni darted in after them and pulled the door closed, sealing them inside.

It was so dark Jennifer couldn’t see Wade, even though he was pressed up against her right side. Susan’s hand accidentally brushed her face as she worked at untying the gag from around her head. Jennifer braced herself for some screaming, wondering if she could knock the woman out with a punch to the head if she started, but Keoni was already in charge. He turned on the flashlight and Jennifer saw that they were in a narrow, dirt hallway. The door they’d come through was sealed tightly shut on the basement entrance. Surely the Dark Ones weren’t smart enough to find a hidden door, were they?

“This way!” Keoni exclaimed. “Come on!”

He darted down the tunnel and Jennifer and the rest of what remained of her team followed him as the ground shook above them.