The Fold: A Novel (22 page)

They stared at Sasha and the bright streak of white running through her hair. The Rogue stripe, Mike had heard kids call it. It started above her left eye and stretched back across her scalp.

Sasha looked back at them. Her eyes were wide, but her breathing was still even. She studied each of their faces in turn.

Mike gave her a moment. “You going to be okay?”

She focused on him. “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

“Not to sound cold,” Olaf said with a glance at the others, “but I think this emphasizes that we shouldn’t spend too much time in here.” He gestured at the bolts. “Is anyone having any luck with these things? I can take them off, but new ones appear right under them.”

“Same,” said Jamie.

Anne nodded, but her gaze was focused through the rings again.

“I’ve taken off three,” said Sasha, double-checking her hand.

“I think they’re bleeding through,” Mike said. “Overlapping. We’re taking off bolts from every version of the Door.”

Arthur’s voice rang above them. “
So we can’t disassemble it?
”

“Maybe not this way,” said Sasha. “We could try the other side. It might be a localized effect.”

She stepped across the platform while the others worked their way around the ramp. Sasha slipped her socket over the nut at point eleven and the wrench chattered while she levered it back and forth. It was one of the stiffer ones, and she had to use the wrench the whole way. It inched out to the end of the bolt and she shook it free of the socket.

“Fuck me,” she said.

Another hex nut held the washer in place.

“
The same?
”

She looked up at the booth and nodded.

“Is there something else we can do?” asked Mike. “Some other way to remove them?”

Sasha shook her head. “We’ll have to break them off.”

“Is that safe?” Anne asked.

“Should be.” Sasha banged her wrench on the off-white carapace. “None of this was intended to be high-end protective. It’s just enough to slow people down if someone tried to sneak in and get a look at the tech.”

Jamie glanced around. “Cables we could unplug? Fuses we could pull? Anything?”

“We did it all a couple days ago, when the Door first stayed open,” Sasha said. “The only things still hooked in are the feeds to the computer.”

“Without those, we’ll have no way to monitor the Door except looking at it.”

“It won’t change anything,” said Jamie. “All our readings have been flatlined for days.”

Mike stared out at the room. Then he looked left and right, craning his head around equipment. Jamie watched him and followed his gaze. “What’s up?”

“All the roaches are gone.”

They looked around. Every one of the green bugs had vanished. The floor was empty.

“We must’ve scared them away,” said Olaf. “So?”

He glanced at the barren floor again, then up at the booth. “Unless you’ve got an idea,” he said to Arthur, “I think we should get out of here and regroup. We shouldn’t just stand here next to it.”

“Fine. We should—LOOK OUT!”

Something moved in Mike’s peripheral vision. A splayed shape. It lunged fast. Jamie and Sasha turned to look. Olaf and Anne leaped back.

It had leaped from nowhere, appearing out of…

It had appeared out of the Door.

It landed on the floor by Jamie with a noise like pasta breaking, a baker’s dozen of hard clicks in a row.

The figure straightened up as Mike turned his head. It was tall and
thin, dressed in a one-piece garment of pale leather that seemed to be half tunic, half cloak. One of its shoulders sat higher than the other, like a hunchback without the hunch. It held a long thin spear in both hands. The ants pulled out a series of images comparing it to a javelin, or maybe a harpoon. He swept them away. The hands were shiny and gray. They reminded Mike of raw oysters.

It had bare feet with the same wet-gray skin. Its toenails were thick and pale. The ends were cracked and jagged. They looked bloody in the red light. The nails curled around the figure’s toes like claws, or maybe hooves.

The figure pointed at him and let out a hard, stuttering breath, the sound of wet lungs. The death rattle of something angry, fighting with its last breath. The black ants presented a set of sound clips for comparison, the most prominent one from the movie
Predator.

How was it pointing at him if both its hands were holding the spear?

The figure swung its free arm, there was a sound of a baseball bat hitting meat, and Jamie went flying. The movement shifted its hood back, and the loop of ragged fabric slid down onto its shoulders.

Mike, instincts honed by too many cafeteria fights and hallway brawls, started forward as soon as he saw the arm swing at Jamie.

As the creature’s hood dropped, the ants swarmed out with pictures and images in a desperate attempt to find some condition or deformity to explain the figure’s face. The closest was a collection of deep-sea fish with glasslike tusks and dead eyes. And even those weren’t that close.

It had three eyes. The largest one didn’t seem to have any lid. It just bulged on one side of the face. The other two, stacked one above the other, were small and dark, like spider eyes. Its nose was a pair of slits in the clay-colored skin.

Arthur made a sound that echoed over the godmike. Sasha shrieked out a “fuck.” Anne stood frozen, staring at the creature. Olaf froze, too, and it lashed out at him with the spear. The shaft caught the physicist across the face with a crack, and sent him stumbling away.

The creature saw Mike coming and hissed out a series of clicks, like bubbles popping from the mouth of a drowning man. Its legs shifted beneath the cloak and its feet clacked on the floor. It spread its arms wide, and the two hands on the right flexed. They had fingernails like claws.

He looked at the extra arm and froze.

The creature lunged at him.

Sasha swung one of the chairs around in a wide arc. Anne screamed. The metal casters smashed into the creature’s skull and sent it staggering back. The spear clattered to the ground. The impact jarred the chair out of Sasha’s hands and it crashed to the floor.

The creature rolled over on its stomach. Two of its arms pushed at the floor, its legs shifted beneath the cloak, and its spine folded back like a circus contortionist, lifting its head up high. It took three scuttling steps toward Sasha on all fours before it straightened up onto two legs again. Anne was still as a statue, her eyes locked on the monster.

“Hey,” shouted Mike. He waved his arms. “Over here!”

Its swollen eye glanced at him. The other two stayed on Sasha. It growled again, and the sound built into a roar that echoed across the main floor.

It went after Sasha.

Mike charged.

The creature slashed at Sasha with one hand. She jumped back and threw her arm up. Four slashes of red appeared on her arm. The tall thing followed up with a backhand across her jaw that sent her sprawling.

Then Mike slammed into it. The impact was like tackling a scarecrow made of two-by-fours. The creature staggered, tripped, and fell. Mike’s face was pressed into the cloak. It smelled like dust and leather and sweat.

The creature swiveled its head around and glared at him. Its teeth gnashed together. An elbow slammed back into his ribs, and then another one. The cloak twisted and thrashed beneath him. Mike pushed himself up and threw a punch as the creature turned. His fist struck the garden of teeth and the points tore at the skin on his knuckles.

One of its arms twisted back
—how did it
bend
like that
—and grabbed his wrist. The creature wrenched itself around so it could look him in the face. This close he could smell its meat-breath and see the glistening of its eyes and the tiny scales that made up its skin.

He tried to throw a punch with his free hand, but the creature grabbed it, too. Its fingernails bit into his skin. The third hand
—it had three arms!
—lashed up and grabbed him around the back of the head.
The spidery fingers twisted themselves into his hair. Its teeth spread, its bear-trap jaws opened wide, and it pulled him down. Mike’s pulse made another leap, blood trickled on his wrists, and Jamie smashed a fire extinguisher down on the creature’s elbow.

She heaved the canister up and brought it down again. Something cracked in the arm. The creature howled.

It hurled Mike aside, and he slammed into the legs of a workstation. The creature folded itself onto four limbs again, the extra arm hanging limp on its high shoulder. It snarled at Jamie.

She swung the extinguisher back for another blow, and Anne’s paralysis finally broke. The receptionist grabbed Jamie’s arm and spit out some panicked, incoherent syllables. The drowning swimmer taking the lifeguard down with her.

The creature glared at the two women for a moment, then stalked forward on all fours. Jamie managed to shake Anne off. She swung the fire extinguisher around in a wide arc.

The monster reared back and up. The red cylinder swept past it and momentum made Jamie stagger forward. The extinguisher twisted in her hands and she fumbled. It slipped from her fingers and left her and Anne unarmed in front of the creature.

Its head swung between them and one of its arms lashed out. It punched Anne square in the chest, its knuckles landing right on her breastbone, and she flew back. The creature watched her crash to the floor, then reached for Jamie.

A socket wrench smacked into its shoulder blade and hit the floor with a clank. The creature turned, and Mike smacked it across the face with the flatscreen. The LCD cracked, but so did a few teeth. Plastic and enamel rained on the floor.

Anne screamed again.

Mike swung the screen back, but the creature had an arm up. It batted the weapon from his hands, and one of its feet lashed out to hit him in the gut. He’d never been hit so hard in his life. He felt the jagged toenails rip at his flesh as the impact knocked him back. He hit the ground and grabbed at his stomach. It was hot and wet. Gut injuries were supposed to be a horrible way to die.

The creature roared again, its clicks bouncing off the walls.

Another roar drowned out the creature. And another. And another. It twisted with the second gunshot, shrieked at the third.

Arthur limped forward with the pistol held firmly in both hands. It was black with a barrel that was squared off instead of round. He squeezed the trigger again and again. One round passed through the creature’s cloak to spark against the steel ramp. Another made it jerk. It raced toward him, covering the distance with terrifying speed, and he shot and shot and shot.

It lunged at Arthur and he flinched away, but there was no strength left in it. A feeble swing of its claws missed him and it crashed to the floor. He fired another shot, one-handed and half-looking, but it would’ve been hard to miss at this range. The cloak twitched and the slide of the pistol slammed back and locked.

The creature let out a low, bubbling moan that trailed off into a wheeze. It settled against the floor. Its outstretched hands relaxed.

Arthur looked at the figure for a moment. He looked at the pistol. Then he took two uneven steps to the left and threw up.

Mike twisted his head around to find Jamie. She was curled in a ball near the ramp, arms wrapped over her head. Anne was shrieking and crying and rocking back and forth on the floor, but didn’t seem to be injured. Olaf sat near the base of the Door, cautiously touching the side of his head. Sasha was sprawled by the far wall.

Mike’s fingers probed his stomach. He had some cuts with a lot of blood, but they didn’t seem to be serious. He crawled to his feet, and a few drops of blood pattered to the floor. His fingers pressed a little harder, and he counted to five. His gut ached, but everything was staying in place.

Arthur threw up again. This time was more of a retch. A thin line of drool stretched down from his lip. He staggered over to grab his cane where he’d dropped it.

Jamie lifted her head and glanced around. Her eyes fell on the cloaked body. “Is it dead?”

Mike staggered over to her, one arm wrapped around his stomach. “I hope so.”

“You’re bleeding.”

“I think Sasha’s bleeding a lot more. Arthur!” He waved the other man to her.

Jamie wrapped an arm around Mike and helped him toward Sasha. They stepped around the fallen chair, keeping the creature in their line of sight. It didn’t move. He saw a reflection on the floor next to it that looked like blood.

Anne’s shrieks faded into a muffled sobbing. She stared at the dead
thing on the floor and trembled. Her eyes were glazed. She muttered a few random sounds and seemed to think they were words.

Jamie and Mike reached Sasha just as Arthur did. Jamie gave Mike a squeeze and released him, making sure he could stand on his own. Then she doubled back to check on Anne.

Sasha groaned, stretched her leg, and then leaped up with a shout.

“It’s okay,” said Mike. He settled her down. Blood had soaked her forearm. At least two of the gashes were deep enough to show muscle.

Her eyes darted around. “Where is it?”

Mike pointed. “Arthur shot it.”

“What?” Sasha stared at the pistol in the older man’s hand. “Where the fuck did you get that?”

“Top left drawer of my desk,” said Arthur.

Mike glanced at the weapon. It was stuck open, which he knew meant it was empty. The ants carried out a series of images from television shows and movies and a small sequence of Tommy Lee Jones explaining the wonders of the firearm to Robert Downey Jr. in
U.S. Marshals.
“You keep a Glock in your desk?”

“Of course I do. I’m the head of a highly classified Department of Defense project.” He looked over at the body. “Did anyone see where it came from?”

“It came out of the Door,” said Olaf. The split across his cheek streamed blood down onto his chest. A huge bruise was blossoming along his jaw.

Jamie shook her head. “We were right there,” she said. “Nothing came out.”

“I think he’s right,” said Mike. “It came out of the rings.”

“I saw something in there,” said Sasha. “I think I saw it. It saw me.”

Mike prodded her arm and she yelped. “Sorry.”

Sasha flexed her hand and winced. Her cheek had faint hints of red and purple across it. “Am I going to live?”

“I think you’re going to need stitches,” said Mike, “but it doesn’t look too bad.” He glanced up at Arthur. “Your doctor trustworthy?”

“How so?”

“Can he keep this quiet? If this is an attack, I think he needs to report it to the police.”

“So?”

Mike gestured at the corpse with his chin. “You want to explain that to the police? That’s before we try to explain that you shot and killed it.”

Arthur looked at the pistol in his hand. “I see your point.” He crouched and set the weapon down on the floor. “I’ve known David for years. I think we can trust him to be discreet.”

“Then let’s get her to the doctor.”

“Yes,” said Sasha, “let’s.” Her cheek was all purple now, and the color was spreading along her jaw. She winced as they helped her up, and bit back a yell when Arthur grabbed her arm by accident.

“You, too,” he said to Olaf.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re bleeding like crazy,” said Jamie.

“It’s just a flesh wound,” Olaf said. “I’m fine.”

“It hit you in the head hard enough to knock you ten feet,” said Mike. “You need to get checked for a concussion, at the least. Probably an X-ray to be safe.”

Jamie wandered back with Anne. The receptionist had calmed down, and wrapped her arms around herself. Jamie cast her eyes on Mike’s bloody shirt and hand. “What about you?”

“I’m okay. It looks worse than it is.”

“It doesn’t matter, if it was carrying an infection,” said Olaf.

“That’s a happy fucking thought,” Sasha muttered.

Mike glanced over at the first aid kit attached to the workstation. He was pretty sure it hadn’t been restocked since Bob’s accident. His mind flitted through images of the building and picked out three other kits.

“Can you get me a first aid kit?” he asked Jamie. “Maybe the big one from the kitchen? I’ll use up all the hydrogen peroxide and antiseptic ointment before I bandage myself up. Then I can have some of whatever antibiotics they give Sasha.”

“You scared of the doctor?”

“No, I’m scared of leaving this thing alone and having it be gone when we get back. Or of leaving you alone with it while we all go to the doctor, and then
you’re
gone when we come back.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s dead,” said Arthur.

Mike glared at him. “Do you know what it is?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then maybe we shouldn’t assume it’s dead.”

Arthur bowed his head. “Of course.”

Anne bit back another sob. Her eyes were locked on the creature.

“Can someone please just get the fucking first aid kit so we can go?” growled Sasha.

Jamie vanished into the offices, dragging Anne with her, and returned alone a few minutes later with the red canvas case. Arthur, Sasha, and Olaf were waiting at the big door when she returned. They slipped out and the door thumped shut behind them.

Mike pulled his hand away from his stomach. It was sticky with blood, but the actual bleeding seemed to have stopped. He loosened the first button on his shirt. “Where’s Anne?”

“I left her in the kitchen with some coffee and a bunch of Advil.”

“She okay?”

“I think she might have a few bruises. Nothing that’ll show.”

“No, I mean…is she okay?”

“I don’t know. I’ll let you know when I’m done freaking out.” Jamie crouched a few feet from the creature. “You really think it might still be alive?”

“Maybe.” He pushed the last button through its hole. One side of his shirt fell open. The other side stayed stuck to his body.

“He shot it a dozen times.”

“Ten, and only five of them hit.”

“Y’know, that can be annoying.”

“Tell me about it.” He gritted his teeth and peeled the shirt off.

Jamie righted one of the chairs, set the kit down, and unzipped it. It was an oversized thing intended for earthquakes. She pulled out some alcohol swabs and a box of gauze.

“This is going to sting,” she said.

“I thought it might.”

She used half a dozen swabs cleaning off the blood. He winced a few times. She tossed the swabs in a pile on the floor. “It doesn’t look too bad,” she said. There were three gouges in his stomach and a long scrape, deep enough that it had bled a bit. “I think only the big one broke the skin.”

“Lucky,” said Mike. He looked at the body again. “The roaches are back.”

The green bugs were creeping out from beneath equipment, making small circles on the floor. Their antennae waved back and forth. Two or three of them scurried up to the dead creature and then darted away. “Looks like they didn’t like him either,” Mike said.

“I don’t blame them.” She tore open a pack of gel caps, popped them in her mouth, and swallowed them dry.

“They have an extra limb, too.”

“What?”

“The roaches all have an extra leg on the right side. Just like this thing.” He dipped his head toward the body.

“Really?” She twisted the cap on a brown bottle and the seal popped. She peeled it away.

“You never noticed?”

She glanced over at the bugs and the body. “I don’t spend a lot of time looking at cockroaches. Lean back.”

He rested his hands on the desktop and she poured hydrogen peroxide across his stomach. It sizzled on the wounds. Mike took in a sharp breath and banged his hand against the desk.

“Stings?”

“Yep.”

Jamie splashed more of it on him. The cuts foamed and hissed. She rinsed his wounds one last time and a few more bubbles danced on his skin. “Almost done.”

“Good. My pants are soaked.”

“You’ll live.”

“Other parts of me are tingling.”

“That’s just because I’m touching you.”

“Hah.”

She pulled the cap off a yellow tube and squeezed ointment over the gouges. Mike went to spread it around, and she slapped his fingers away. She tore open two packs of gauze at the same time, pressed them over the wounds, and had him hold them while she peeled off some tape. Then she found a bandage in the kit and wrapped it four times around his stomach.

“I think that’s enough,” he said.

“You sure?”

“How are you? That thing hit you pretty hard.”

She reached back and touched her head behind her ear. “I’ve got a lump and some sore ribs. I’ll live.”

“You sure?”

“I got off easy. The rest of you took the beating.” She gestured at the body. “So…what now?”

“We should lock it up somewhere,” he said. “Maybe clean out one of the hazmat lockers?”

She looked past him. “The closest one’s way over there. We wouldn’t be able to watch it and empty the locker.”

“Maybe tie it up?”

“It’s a high energy physics lab. We don’t have a lot of rope laying around.”

He shivered.

“You sure you’re okay?”

“I’m kind of cold.”

“Really?”

“I’ve lost some blood, my pants are wet, and I don’t have a shirt. Yes, I’m cold.”

“Okay, then,” she said. “We can’t leave it alone. We can’t lock it up.” She glanced over at the rings. “And we can’t stay here.”

He nodded. “So we make sure it’s dead.”

Jamie found two big wrenches in the toolbox. Each one was only a foot long, but they were steel and solid and had a good weight to them. There were a few utility knives, but the blades were too short to be of any use.

They approached the body. Its blood was dark red. A few more roaches circled the creature, but none of them moved closer than a few inches before skittering away.

He could see the back of the creature’s head. It had a loose circle of gray-black hair. The strands were close to dreadlocks in places, thinning and patchy in others.

The cloak was coarse leather that had been bleached by the sun. Not even leather, just hides that had been worn and bent enough to stay soft. Some of it was hairless, some had bristly patches of fur. The whole thing was held together with broad stitches of thick cord. Mike had a feeling it was dried muscle sinews. He knew Native Americans and some other cultures used sinews for threads and bowstrings.

“I think that’s a good sign,” he said, pointing his wrench at the roaches circling the body.

“You think they’re going to eat it?”

“No clue. But they were mobbing this place until it showed up and now they’re all coming back. I think they know its dead.”

“Does that mean we’re done?”

He shook his head. “We’ve got to be sure.”

Jamie looked at the two right hands sticking out from under the cloak. One was palm up, the other palm down. Two of the long fingers curled under the left hand. “You want to take its pulse or something?”

“I guess. It’s a start.”

“Wish I’d kept the fire extinguisher.”

“You want to go grab it?”

“No.”

“You sure?”

“Believe me,” she said, “if it moves I’m beating its head in with this wrench.”

Mike reached over the puddle of blood and touched the creature’s left wrist. Hot pinpricks of pain sparked under his bandages as he stretched. He tried to ignore them.

The skin looked like wet clay, but he felt dozens of tiny scales shift under his fingertip. He counted to five. When the body didn’t move, he lifted the hand. The bent fingers uncurled, and he heard the rustle of Jamie’s clothes as she tensed up. He let the wrist settle against his fingers and counted to ten. Nothing. No throb or rhythm or tremor. Drops of blood beaded up on two of the long nails and plopped to the floor.

“Well?” asked Jamie.

He counted to ten again. Still no pulse. “I’m going to try to roll it over,” he said.

“Why?”

“To get a better look at it.”

“You’re hurt,” she said. “Why don’t I roll it over?”

“Because I’m hurt,” he said, “and if it jumps up and grabs me, I want somebody healthy trying to beat its head in.”

She managed a tight smile.

The easiest way to flip the body, Mike decided, was to move the single arm in close to the torso and then roll the creature from the other
side. He tucked his wrench into the back pocket of his jeans, slid his hand along the cloak to the elbow, and pushed. The joint was more flexible than he expected. The loose material of the cloak, half stuck to the floor by blood, rolled and flopped under the arm.

He shifted his feet, leaned a little farther, and pushed the arm up against the body. The fingers left trails of clean floor in the puddle, and then the blood oozed back in to fill the trails and erase them. The cloak dragged out flat.

Mike looked down and screamed. He pushed himself back, the pinpricks of pain in his stomach became razors, and he slammed into Jamie. She saw the cloak and made a sound that could’ve been a loud groan or a muffled shout. She slapped her free hand over her mouth.

Mike’s mind was a blur of static. The ants had hundreds of facts and images for his comparison. What kept rising to the foreground was another fact about Native Americans, an old grade school maxim.

They used every part of what they hunted.