David Golemon - Ripper

“I’m afraid not dear. Now get moving and I’ll see if I can keep this thing, whatever it is, occupied.”

Just as they started to move away, the laughter came once more. The professor nodded at his small group of survivors and moved off into the dark. The others started moving toward the back of the sports arena. They heard the elevator drawing closer as they moved, stumbling and cursing in the dark, but still doing as the professor ordered. Then suddenly they heard the cargo elevator hit their level and stop with a loud whine. First one, then another, and then the others started a blind and panic-driven run toward the gates that housed the lift.

Professor Thomas started a run of his own. He ran toward the center of the field and then tripped immediately over the rubble that had fallen. He rolled onto his back just as something large fell from the girders above him. It fell the one hundred feet and landed with a thud only five yards from his prone body. He heard the growl of whatever it was immediately. He raised his head and saw the darkened shape standing before him. The figure looked like the largest primate he had ever seen. It was at least seven feet tall and built like a tank. He could see the outline of its body and knew it to be naked.

“What in the hell are you?” he asked as he tried his best to sit up, but his body would not cooperate.

“I and others like me are dead men, just as you are,” came the deep and menacing voice.

“Who are you?” Thomas said in a low voice, shocked when he realized that the creature standing before him heard the question. Its hearing must have been like that of a timberwolf in the winter months.

“Who … am … I?” came the lowered voice, which had lost the menacing, just-beneath-the-surface growl. “My … my name is…”

Thomas saw the line of drool fall from the beast’s mouth. It shimmered in the weak lighting from the emergency floods. The professor chanced a look behind him and tried to see where his people were. He heard the opening of the large cargo gate and the hollow thump of footsteps as people started to fill the giant floor of the elevator. He knew he had to stall for more time.

“Yes, tell me your name,” he asked, trying to use as much sympathy-laced injection as he could.

The shadowy beast before him tilted its head as if it were deep in thought. It was still drooling and it shifted its massive weight from foot to foot.

“Car … Car … Carmichael, Sam … uel, rrrrr, serial num … ber … 556 … 67 … 48 … 79.”

“That’s a nice name, son.”

The beast straightened up and with a shake of its large head lifted its face to the dark area above them and screamed in rage. It started forward and Professor Thomas said a silent, quick prayer as the creature came into full view. The old man crossed himself as he realized he had been speaking to a beast who said his name, and then offered his serial number, just as a soldier would have. He hoped it wasn’t one of Captain Everett’s security men just as he closed his eyes at the exact moment the giant soldier stomped him literally to death. Then its green and glowing eyes looked up and penetrated the darkness as it caught sight of the lift and the people inside who were just lowering the gate. It started running for the elevator and its occupants.

The men and women inside were screaming for whoever was operating the lift to step on it. They realized that they weren’t going to move in time. The beast was almost upon the steel gate as it reached out. Suddenly the giant cargo elevator started to rise and it was the sudden movement that made the beast miss the mark. It was left grabbing at empty air as the lift rose on its sixteen massive cables. As the lost souls rose from the depths of the ninth circle of hell, they looked through the steel grating and watched in abject horror as the large gate sealing the shaft crashed inward.

“Oh, God!” one of the men shouted as the beast rose in the darkness, leaped from the shaft, and grabbed hold of a trailing cable. It started to climb.

The giant lift started to climb faster as the large motors on level one coiled the cables and took on the massive weight of the elevator. Still, the creature came hand over hand on the slippery cable.

“Jesus, what do we do?” asked one of the women.

The beast hit the bottom of the lift before any answer could be given. Everyone screamed as the thick and elongated fingers came through the grating that made up the flooring. The beast held on as it ripped and pulled at the steel mesh. It was now in a frenzy of madness as the men and women tried to get as far into the opposite corner as possible. Soon, the beast was able to get its entire arm through the steel floor. It swiped at those closest and nearly managed to snag a woman’s bare foot.

It would be through the floor of the lift in less than a minute.

As the thirteen security men watched, they could see the top of the lift as it rose. They had been caught off-guard when the giant elevator started down into the complex. The sergeant in charge of gate security cursed his luck that he hadn’t been closer so at least six of the team could have lowered themselves into the complex. As it was, they were stunned when the lift started rising once more. They could hear frightened screams of men and women coming closer out of the blackness below.

“Stand ready to cover these people,” the sergeant said as he backed away from the gate where the elevator would arrive. “It sounds like they may have company coming with them.”

Finally they could see the anxious, scared faces staring up at them from the terrified men and women on the lift. “Stand back,” the sergeant shouted as the concrete flooring parted fully. The gap they had been looking into separated into a massive thirty-foot-long chasm as the lift neared the top.

The sergeant quickly opened the steel gate that protected the open pit and readied his M-14 carbine as did his twelve men. The lift finally appeared and as it cleared the opening the steel gates that made up its side slowly lowered on their hydraulics until they were flat against the old concrete of the hangar. He didn’t have to order the men and women off the lift, as they came at his men in a stampede. Shaken, the sergeant was yelling for them to slow down and tell him what was happening. Then he heard one of his men shout as another sound came into the mix, the tearing and wrenching of steel as the beast finally tore away the last of the flooring.

“My God,” the sergeant said as his men’s gunfire drowned out his exclamation of shock at what he was seeing. The beast covered its head and face and charged the security detail. It was only focused on getting through them and their gunfire to kill everyone that had been on the lift. It was as if its brain had locked on to one desire only: get those that had escaped it.

The security men saw that their 5.56-millimeter rounds were just punching holes in thick, pulsing skin while not doing any real damage.

“Fall back, out of the hangar!” the sergeant yelled as he started to back away, pushing and pulling his men as he did.

The beast roared and advanced. It moved with purpose as Jack and Carl’s well-trained security men maintained their fire until they were clear of the giant hangar doorframe. They backed away while keeping up a withering fire at the beast. They watched as large pieces of flesh were torn free of its chest, legs, and arms, but still it advanced.

The camouflaged security detail ventured into the dark night where the desert surrounded them but offered no hope of cover. They realized too late that they were walking the creature directly into the path of every man and woman they had pulled from the complex, over three hundred of them, most of which were yelling and screaming in fear as the beast was free of the hangar and bearing down up them.